Imagine there’s a rope that you pick up. It’s tied up to something you think you need in your life. So, you hold on to it. At first, it comes easily; you don’t need to pull much; you’re holding onto it with one hand. You become accustomed to it and start thinking you can’t live without it. But slowly, the rope gets harder to hold. It feels heavier as times go back, and you feel it pulling back, away from you. So, you hold tighter. You need that in your life, you can’t let go if you do your soul will hurt too much. You pull and pull and pull and pull. Your hand hurts, it’s red. Now you’re holding on with both hands because it has become impossible to use just one hand. Slowly the rope pierces your skin, but still, you hold on. Both hands hurt; they’re bloody, and they just hurt so much. You’re crying; you’re always crying now. You’re destroying yourself little by little. “But the thing is worth it,” you say to yourself. “You can’t give up on it now,” you convince yourself. You need it.
But you’re wrong. You can let go of that rope. In fact, you should let go. Nothing in this world or the next is worth destroying yourself for. In life, things come and go; people come and go. And we can’t hold onto anything while they destroy our soul. Nothing is worth the destruction of your essence, of your happiness. It might feel like letting go is the worst thing that can happen to you, like it would hurt too much, but it hurts a thousand times more to lose yourself in something or someone that doesn’t want you to hold on. Letting go is not equal to giving up. Letting go is putting yourself first and giving yourself a chance at happiness. If someone wants to be in your life, they will be without destroying you. However, letting go is not limited to people. We hold on to everything. Material things, positions, titles and more. We believe we can’t live without certain things, and if we lose them, we feel like the world crumbles, like nothing is worth it anymore. But, life continues and so must we. In the end, holding onto what was or what could have been only hurting us more. It’s better to grow and move on. Be an open door. Don’t shut people or opportunities out for fear of losing them, but also, don’t shut people in when they are begging to get out. Let them go and let yourself be free.