Everyday ethics: Holding on and letting go
Yesterday I passed another year on my life journey..
Along the way, I’ve learned a few lessons about how best to live, usually by trial and error. Here’s one life lesson that has taken me a long time to grasp and even longer to apply: Learn when to hold on and when to let go.
This is very practical guidance for how best to live, which is what ethics is supposed to be about. It’s a matter of priorities — what you most value and what you don’t.
Ethics isn’t usually about asking the big, often unanswerable queries such as how the universe began. I often think of the philosopher who was asked where God was before creation. “Making hell for people with questions like that,” he responded.
I’ve appreciated the final words of the poet Gertrude Stein when asked on her death bed, “Gertrude, Gertrude, what is the answer?” To which she responded: “What’s the question?”
A great deal of philosophy should begin with the most basic questions, since these will shape the answers. Or as a teacher of philosophy once said jokingly to a class, “We may not have all the answers, but we have a monopoly on the questions.”
My basic question seems simple: What’s the best way to live?
Some hold onto the past, not understanding they can’t change but.only learn from it. They end up frustrated and often resentful of what they don’t have. They move into the future looking in the rearview mirror.
Others face forward and live for the future, missing the present. They end up feeling they’ve missed something. They have. They’ve missed their lives.
A few take the present as a gift. They reflect and learn from the past but face forward, hopeful for the future.
Most of us spend far too much time and energy holding on to things, thinking they define our worth. They don’t. As the saying goes, “You can’t take it with you.”
When I die I don’t want to be remembered for how much I have but how much I have given, nor for any newsworthy deeds but rather for the little, often unremembered acts only I remember.
At the end of the day or a life we realize what really matters are not things but people, those we love and those who love us. We need to hold on to this wisdom.
And then we need to accept what can and what can’t be changed. We can’t change the past, but we can learn from it.
Hold on to what’s really important in your life and let go of what’s not. If we could practice living this way every day, our lives and those of the people around us would be better.
John C. Morgan is an author and teacher. His email is drjohncmorgan@yahoo.com
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