I've been noticing that I've become much more conscious with my commitments. Looking back at all the times that I was stressed out, depressed, and generally just unhappy with my life, it's becomes more and more evident how differently I approach life in general. With that being said, I decided to reconsider the phrase of "letting it go" and figuring out how that's evolved and grown over the last several months.
I figured out pretty quickly that most of my issues stemmed from a need to control things. The simple truth that I found after a lot of self reflection and meditation is that I don't feel we really control anything external to ourselves. I believe we only control how we feel about things in life. We can make plans and have big dreams and we can set our intentions to accomplish goals, but we never fully control all of the circumstances involved and we don't always get what we thought we wanted. With the right mindset we can want what we do get though and maybe that's what it's all about. Being content and finding happiness in the moments in between contentment.
Oh yes, those things that weigh us down can be an issue. I found that some of these things are about control, but in reality there are more of them that I was doing subconsciously. Committing to things that I wasn't really interested in at all. Pursuing things that never made me happy, such as money, other people, or hobbies that just wasted my time away. Letting go of control was the first step, but I then had to be conscious of all of my intentions and obligations that I was putting on myself.
Why commit to anything that we aren't passionate about and doesn't equally commit to us? That's not just people, that includes things like jobs, projects, and even groups or organizations. If they don't align with our own personal mission, then we don't need them. I feel like I used to make a lot of excuses to justify putting up with a lot of shit that I didn't want in my life because of the illusion that it gave me what I wanted in the end. There is no need to compromise our own happiness to get what we want. Namaste.