Letting go, faster
Unshackling yourself for a happier journey
Howdy! Welcome back to Traipsing About, my newsletter about reclaiming creativity and ditching tired personal paradigms.
I hope you had a lovely holiday season. Mr. T. Rex sure did, misplaced star or not.
This week’s flashback: If this was 1500 in Japan during the Sengoku epoch, I’d hire a lithe ninja to deliver this newsletter. He’d run up a wall and front flip over a hedge, tacking this issue of Traipsing About to your door with a throwing star.
Instead, ShurikenEmail™, here’s the newsletter, no ninjas needed. Probably for the best—painting doors sucks.
Around here, we’re lying low at home in Bend enjoying winter hibernation, a big recent snowfall, and subzero temps. As I mentioned before, we pivoted travel plans for the simplest of reasons—after a tumultuous 2022, chilling out (literally) for a few months felt better than gallivanting about. We’ll do shorter trips in it until we’re ready for longer expeditions.
This week on Wintering About, Edition #130:
Should we let go?
Giving up on books
Traipsing Tidbits: Brainwriting improvement, revamped Google Tasks, Minimalism game, lofi beats, and keeping the sky.
But first, two recent winter pics from the trail near our house. Gotta love different seasons!
Letting go, faster
This year was another where I didn’t make any New Year’s resolutions. I couldn’t be happier about it.
Instead, I keep thinking about attachments and things I think I should be doing. The latest brainworm that keeps digging around in my gray matter is this:
The faster I can let go of something, the more committed I can be to anything.
This is obviously returning to ancient wisdom, nothing new here! Wild how much of life’s recentering is based on revisiting ideas—like watching breathing during meditation, day after day.
It feels significant at the moment though. If I’m not clinging to any person, possession, action or activity, then I can be honest about whether I want it in my life anymore. I won't fear the process of moving on, of letting go.
Magically, moving on quickly allows me to try on different hats faster, tuning me into things that light me up. I’m not flitting from thing to thing due to boredom, but following my inner compass when it screams YOU’RE GOING THE WRONG WAY, FOOL.
In the past, I’d do politically-related dropoffs around election time. It stressed me out and I haaaated it, but did it anyway because I felt like I should be that person. Finally, I acknowledged this was not for me, that I could contribute in other ways. I let it go. OMG, the relief.
Another that took me awhile to let go was downhill and backcountry skiing. I loved the flow and being outside in a winter environment, but I’d have a close brush with injury too often. My knees would hurt afterward; my back would feel jacked up. I didn’t like it that much, but felt like I should be doing it. I live in a mountain town, after all.
Selling that gear and just enjoying winter as a time to chill and hibernate, read, go for snowy walks and do bit of XC skiing, and play lots of music? Now we’re talking!
Some other examples:
Hauling around a big fancy camera to be a Photographer. Ditching that and just using an iPhone took the pressure off and made it fun again. Now I take more pictures!
Selling my fast road bike and deciding to cruise in a comfortable position vs. grinding away with my face in a grimace.
Related to that—no longer posting activities on Strava, a workout-sharing social app. Instant release from the pressures I put on myself to bike, run or ski at a certain pace or distance.
There are more! The theme: When I’m Shoulding all over myself, I am happier if I moooove on. The sooner, the better. Letting go lets me get to a better fit for current me.
So here’s the question: What can you learn from a Master Should-er like me? What relationships, activities, or identities are you holding onto because you should vs. because you want to?
Once you identify it, bid adieu and move onto something that fits you better!
Why do you abandon books?
Speaking of letting go faster, I’ve stopped finishing books that don’t grab me. In the past, if I was a couple of chapters in, I’d wallow away until the end. Not anymore. Now it’s more in the spirit of this idea:
“If you're 50 years old or younger, give every book about 50 pages before you decide to commit yourself to reading it, or give it up.
If you're over 50, which is when time gets shorter, subtract your age from 100 - the result is the number of pages you should read before deciding whether or not to quit. If you're 100 or over you get to judge the book by its cover, despite the dangers in doing so.” Nancy Pearl
An interesting aspect to abandoning a book is asking myself WHY I’m bailing on it. That is informative in itself!
For me, I often abandon books without personal narratives. These crop up too often in non-fiction writing, droll, banal, blahhhh. Perhaps that’s why I love Michael Lewis or Adam Grant’s writing—there are always stories, people to connect to.
No narrative? It’s time to pan for gold in a river, not float down the entire thing. Which makes it ok to bail when I’ve found what I needed. Seeeee ya.
Traipsing About Tidbits
Note: none of these are ever affiliate links, just stuff I use, enjoy or admire.
As an extension of the Brainwriting (vs. brainstorming) I mentioned last time, Angie in Iowa sent me a how-to approach for amping that up.
Google Tasks is new and improved. I love how the tasks integrate with my calendar and carry over into following days if I don’t complete them.
Speaking of letting go of stuff, ditch unused or unwanted possessions with the Minimalism game!
Loving the lofi beats mix on Spotify for these winter days.
Sure, it’s winter, but don’t replace the sky just yet.
Quote of the Week
"Happiness comes from living as you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to be." Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes
HI-YAH! (←Ninja yell) You’ve reached the end of Traipsing About newsletter #130.
This week’s unsolicited advice:
Stop Shoulding all over yourself and only do optional hobbies or activities because you want to. Next level: Apply that same mentality to the NON-optional stuff!
Onward,
Dakota
P.S. I may not work as an engineer anymore, but I still cracked up many times at this SNL sketch about the (inane) Imperial System of measurement.
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“Should”—the enemy of joy. Thanks for reminding me to not let it push me away from what makes life meaningful.
100%! A constant battle for our true priorities.