The Two Things To Fully Let Go Of: Attachments And Expectations

" What is it that makes you cry? It is only your attachments. What is it that you miss when it is lost? It is the object of your attachment. Ponder over this. " - Osho

Attached to materials. Attached to human beings. Attached to outcomes. Attached to our views of the world. Attached to our sense of identity. Attached to our ego.

Let go of attachments. They may need you, but you don’t need them. Hold on to impermanence. We’re unhappy precisely because we aim to be happy. We subject ourselves to so much suffering precisely because we unhealthily grasp onto the two baddest bad boys of the neighborhood: Attachment and Expectation. We hate to love them, yet the charms of the dangerous seduces us to get closer from what we should step away from. It’s like walking on an electric cord. Sooner or later, we will get shocked.

It feels unnatural to us to do any differently. When an object catches our eye, we buy it. When a crush turns into a lover, we put a label on it. When a special occasion is around the corner, we fantasize about how it will go. We are unwilling to see reality just as it is.

That’s when the beast that can’t be put to rest comes into the picture: our imagination. Armed with the capacity to turn the ordinary into the extraordinary, this badboy doesn’t tolerate one split second of boredom. Add all the different biases imprinted in our psyche, and you have the recipe for self-made disappointment. It’s inevitable: the external reality will never perfectly match the one we create in the confines of our mind.

Incapable of swallowing this painful truth, we persist in convincing ourselves that perhaps one day, things will make sense. Perhaps one day, we’ll get what we want. Perhaps one day, people will behave the way we want them to. Hope is the fuel to the limitless narratives made up by our imagination. It doesn’t only keep us going - it keeps our mind continuing to roll another scenario. One after the other, they become the lens by which we perceive reality.

We’re doomed to be disappointed because from the beginning, the odds are stacked against us. We put our trust into hope, the people we love, the universe, our guru, yet all these things are uncertain. How can you ensure that hope, the people you love, the universe, or your guru won’t turn their backs on you tomorrow? How can you expect other beings to perceive the world the exact way that you do? The more attached you are to what you have limited control over - the more at risk you put yourself if things don’t go as planned in your own mind. In other words, you're f***** if these very things disappear from your life.