Letting Go

I have been letting go.

It was obvious in some ways. I donated clothes I did not wear and books I will not read.

It was more subtle in other ways. Along with the books I let go of the person I thought I was going to be. The person who would read those books. Letting them go was letting go of this hypothetical future me. That’s why it was so hard to do. I had hung onto that me for years (in the form of those books.)

I let go of my goals. Of the idea that I should control where my life is headed. I never could control that in the first place. That’s not to say that I won’t take the initiative to make things happen. I will and do. I just don’t weave my actions into a story, a grand vision of who I will become. I just am. I don’t live to labor in service of an imagined future. I enjoy the present. What ever it may hold for me.

I let go of my identity. Who is Jonathan? I am not my past. The past is behind me. I am not my future. The future is not real. I am not my physical body. Within 6 months every single cell of my body will have renewed itself. No piece of my current body will remain. I am not my thoughts and opinions. An identity created out of them would be a false and hollow one. A prison.

How can you “change your mind” if you are your opinions? Isn’t that why so many people are so unwilling to change their mind? It’s not that they don’t want to, they can’t. They defend their position, because they are their position. It’s self-defense. Arguments can’t convince them, which you know if you have argued with people like that. I would know. I was like that. But now I’m free!!! Is how my thoughts are trying to continue my story. “From that moment on, my life was different. I had found the truth. I had achieved enlightenment.” Real shit. I had those thoughts. But they’re just thoughts. They are not me.