Letting Go

For some people, it comes naturally (perhaps too naturally), and for other's, it seems utterly impossible... Letting things go is something that certain people have an affinity for, and other don't. Some people are lucky enough to be somewhere in the middle, but I think most people are at least a little too far to one side or the other. I, personally, have extreme difficulties letting things go, especially things that aggravate me. Every once in a while, however, I manage to let something go, and I can never get used to just what a relief it is! It's like an enormous burden suddenly vaporising and floating away into the sky. Okay, it's not always so graceful, and getting to that point is definitely easier said than done...

Several days ago, I sought out an answer to something on a website that's specifically for asking questions and getting answers from other users in an attempt to share useful knowledge. Well, I haven't always found the community on that site to be so utopian. In fact, sometimes it's just full of arrogant, self-righteous ass-holes, to put it nicely. There really isn't any other way I can think of putting it, that isn't harsher, to give the right idea. Well, needless to say, I got a bit incensed with some of the people on their and even got to the point of reporting one and writing an angry message to another. These didn't go unwarranted, either. I was not irrationally lashing out - I was taking appropriate actions in response to their actions. I thought that my angry message was even quite restrained and civilised!

Well, I went out of town for Easter weekend, and for that whole time, I didn't check my e-mail or that website. It was actually nice that I forgot about it all. Well, after getting back home (tonight), I got on my e-mail and checked the messages. Well, I got more than I was expecting, but one stuck out in particular. It was a message from that site. Specifically, it was the reply to my angry message. The person actually had said that they didn't even know what I was talking about, and so they couldn't even reply to it. For a brief and immediate moment, I became inflamed. I wanted to (virtually) scream at him until my head exploded!

...But then, something unusual happened. I rubbed my headache riddled head, checked the box next to that e-mail... and deleted it. I then deleted all of the other junk and moved on. It wasn't instantaneously, but it was pretty quickly, that I sudden felt this great sense of relief. I didn't have to worry about the stress of ranting furiously at this guy, or trying to reign myself in so that I wasn't in turn accused of being belligerent, or awaiting his next reply, or the possibility of several more back-and-forth messages... I just stopped it right then and there. On a scale of 1-10 of how hard it is normally for me to let something like this go... it probably gets a solid 7. If you throw in some erroneous information on the other person's end, then it probably jumps to a 9 or a full-blown 10. It can probably sometimes seem like I might be more willing to give up a kidney than to give up a conversation about something that makes me angry. Well, I guess I must be willing to give up a kidney, now!

You might hear stories of people who got great relief from not stressing out about certain things so much, and you might either scoff at it or think it's completely obvious... or both. I've often scoffed at it and thought it sounded completely obvious. I have always had trouble not making sarcastic or irritated remarks about positive life stories, whether out of jealousy or some warped perception of reality. I could just as easily think that the person is being hopelessly positive in a hopeless world (warped perception) as I could jealously crave what they've found. Well, I don't really get jealous about that sort of stuff right now (I've come to be like the people I've made fun of!)

Now, admittedly, if I didn't have the headache, weren't tired, weren't lacking the mental stamina to carry out the incensed ranting back-and-forth, and I didn't feel like it would be inevitably pointless, I probably would've continued with it. I would've fruitlessly have brought more stress upon myself out of some inane idea of right and wrong, good versus bad, and an idiotic moral-crusader-type delusionary complex. But what's the point? In all of my experience, I'm the only one who really loses anything out of such situations. Sometimes I may even feed other people's warped psychological appetites, and then I'm not only bringing damage to myself, but providing something that my 'antagonist' wants! So, again, what's the point? Simple, and essentially only, answer... There isn't one. It's totally pointless! So... I cut it off. I stopped that horrid cycle, at least for now. Score one for me!

So I probably saved myself a considerable amount of utterly unnecessary stress just by ignoring something that could do nothing more than cause me unnecessary stress. I think that my head and body would be thanking me for saving them that burden if they... well... were autonomous and could speak as entities other than myself.