Why it�€™s important to let go, let be, and let the unexpected through

 
The universe has a way of producing greater riches than we expect — just not in the form we were looking for. Yet if your courage is strong and your mind open, you can seize these unexpected offerings and use them to your advantage. The randomness inherent in the universe requires your cooperation, if you are to benefit from its gifts. Walking along a fixed path, eyes wide shut and mind clamped on some hoped-for outcome, is inviting the future to run right over you, probably hurting you as it does.

The three essential steps in this process —letting go, letting be, and letting through — are often ignored, yet they are the only ways I know to defeat our human tendency to fall back into old habits and limited visions. Why restrict your future to what you can see right now — or, worse, to a robotic extension of past experience? If you give yourself time to look with fresh eyes and respond to reality — not just your assumptions about it — unseen possibilities will emerge. Five minutes spent considering people�€™s attempts to predict the future should be enough to prove to you that we humans are very poor at envisaging the future, while our predictions are laughable compared with what actually happens.

Letting go is essential to all change and development

Letting go of old habits, anxieties, and ways of seeing the world is the first step in making any change. It does not need to be an aggressive process. You don�€™t have to destroy the past or condemn it. Many of those former patterns of thought served you well in their time — only that time is past. Now they�€™re holding you back from changes you need to make. Let them go. Stop clinging to the past and walk away with no backward glances.

Few rules of thumb are more destructive of growth and creativity that the saying: �€œIf it ain�€™t broke, don�€™t fix it.�€� It doesn�€™t have to be broken to require change — just tied to the past and restricting your view of future possibilities. Nearly all progress depends on continuous improvement in small increments. Sudden changes and revolutions in thought are the exception. They also carry nearly all the risks. We remember and celebrate the few that succeeded, while overlooking the majority that failed.

Know when to let things be to settle down

The quickest way to return to old, discredited patterns of thinking and behavior is to add change upon change in a welter of excitement. Each new change undermines those that have gone before, while they�€™re still only loosely fixed in your daily behavior. The most likely result is a rapid series of failures and disappointments. Growth needs time. Life proceeds at its own pace and haste rarely pays off.

One you�€™ve made a change, the temptation to tinker with the new patterns can be strong. That�€™s where letting be is important. Changes take time to embed and become natural. Don�€™t be like a small child with a packet of seeds, digging them up every day to see if they�€™re growing yet. Your previous pattern of thinking probably took decades to form. You may feel as if you�€™ve swept it all away in a rush of enthusiasm for the new, but it�€™s still there and ready to return. Making new behaviors and patterns of thought stable will take longer than you think. Adding further changes too soon prolongs the process and weakens its impact. Those old habits easily snap back into place if they�€™re given an opening.

Let the future through

Taking your time and allowing events to develop naturally allows you to let the unexpected through. It�€™s amazing how often people block their growth and development by focusing only on what they expected, not what is actually coming into being.

Whatever you plan and expect your future to be is rarely — if ever — exactly what happens. Life is too uncertain and dynamic. Randomness is everywhere and even those events that follow some pattern happen according to their own logic, not your expectations.

If you allow yourself to become fixated on one desired result, you stand a good chance of being disappointed, as well as missing all the other the possibilities in whatever actually occurs.

By setting yourself fixed expectations, you open the door wide to disappointment and frustration, followed by remorse and a slow return to all those old, predictable ways. What you wanted and planned for didn�€™t happen and you assume that you have failed. Meanwhile the future is offering you more than you even dreamed was possible, only you�€™re blind to what that is as you fixate on hopes and dreams that weren�€™t fulfilled.

Letting the future through means:

• Observe whatever emerges with an open mind. Let go of the narrow categories of expectation you formed earlier.
• Stay on the alert to unexpected possibilities. Striving to see all the options that have arisen, not just whether the few that you expected have come to pass.
• Open your mind to unexpected opportunities and have the courage to respond. Consistency is an over-rated attribute. Any fool can display consistent behavior and nearly all do.

Don�€™t waste time and energy trying to second-guess the future. Let go of past assumptions and habits and let the future be whatever it is. Stop trying try to force it into the limited confines of past expectations. Only by letting go of the past, letting yourself be at ease with change, and letting unexpected possibilities through, can you grow and develop, even in a random universe.

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