Karen Miller wrote that people have trouble letting go. I happen to be listening to "Steve Jobs" by Walter Isaacson and it seems as though Steve didn't let go of much. I have not heard much of the book but that is the impression I have so far.
Letting go of what? Of whatever is bugging you, haunting you, irritating you. I looked up "letting go" in Amazon books and found 2,000 responses. Clearly a big subject, a rich subject.
I tried listing reasons people have for not letting go.
I think I will succeed if I keep holding on. I may and holding on may pay off. Perhaps there is a way I can persist without being bent out of shape by my project, my dream, my goal, my plan. There is such a thing as the gambler's fallacy. In fact, Wikipedia lists several sorts of gambler's fallacy more or less related to the idea that if I pull the handle on a slot machine enough times, it MUST pay off. This subject is related to the idea of "sunk costs", costs that have already been incurred. Maybe if I persist, I can have such a big success that I wind up with a profit even after paying my sunk costs.
Who will I be without my goal of this project, without my plan to have a terrific success? I will be so ashamed, so ridiculed that I better keep on keeping on.
I simply don't feel like desisting. I like the rhythm I have going of morning work on my project, lunch, afternoon work on my project, dinner, and evening dreams of my project's success. I don't want to face who I am, what I am, or how I spend my time. I don't want to be analytical or philosophical or reasonable or explanatory. I just want to do my thing.
People and me hate quitters. I am not a quitter. You think Nature or chance can outlast me. No way. Watch me.
Buddhists and psychologists watch out for "striving" or "craving". Situations where I get so hung up on, say, toffee or losing weight that I invest my self-image, my picture of the future in having more toffee or less weight. Daniel Gilbert makes clear in "Stumbling on Happiness" that most people picture the heaven of more toffee or the paradise of being slim without being able to see that the bills will still need to be paid, the local team will lose that all important game and your allergies are going to spring up. That is, achieving a goal is part of a larger world and will rarely be as wonderful as imagining it in isolation seems like it will be.
