The Best Way to Solve a Problem: Give Up
Sometimes the easiest way to solve a problem is to stop participating in the problem. Sometimes the smartest choice is giving up.
I don’t think that giving up should be your primary method for dealing with problems. But there are certainly a lot of cases where it just seems to be the most intelligent answer.
Giving up is really about honoring your feelings. It’s about giving up trying to force yourself into a mold of societal shoulds and embracing your true self.
So here’s an invitation to…
- Give up trying to be perfect.
- Give up trying to be cool.
- Give up wanting to be different for the sake of being unique.
- Give up keeping relationships with people you don’t really like.
- Give up trying to be the center of attention.
- Give up trying to be important. (Focusing on community is usually more fulfilling.)
- Give up achieving a lot of ego-driven goals.
- Give up caring about owning a lot of cool things, which keep you distracted from acknowledging that you don’t like what you’re doing with your life.
With that said, there are a lot of ways we think we’re doing well, but we’re really not.
Counter-intuitive to what you think, it might make more sense to…
- Give up trying to be super happy all the time. Instead, settle for being peaceful.
- Give up trying to live up to the expectation of… yourself.
- Give up needing a reason to share your love. Being alive is reason enough.
- Give up trying to be everything to everyone.
- Give up caring about being the smartest, best and fastest. At least don’t let your ego get caught up in it.
- Give up trying to constantly improve yourself.
- Give up caring about doing what works.
- Give up caring about knowing everything in advance before you take action. Put yourself on auto-response instead.
- Give up trying to always find interesting experiences and interesting things to do.
- Give up trying to live up to the expectation of your parents, your friends, your boss, and peers.
- Give up trying to have a flawless body, perfect face, or an impeccable wardrobe.
Trying to make things happen all the time creates a lot of unnecessary anxiety. It’s stressful trying to deny what is.
When I give up, I accept life as it is. No strings attached. No wishing things were different. If an action needs to be taken, I take it. But I’ve given up letting my happiness be dependent on a thing.
It’s interesting how we seem to have so many problems, so many dilemmas. But most of the time the answer to solving them is doing nothing. Giving up.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:26 AM
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