Knowing How To Give Up Is The Key To Feeling Good
It is no exaggeration to say that much of our well-being depends on our ability to give up. Surely the word “renunciation” generates a certain aversion, not for another reason we live in a culture that never ceases to invite us to obtain and accumulate. Yet knowing how to give up is extremely important.
Psychologists’ offices often host people who cannot find their path and who are not happy with their life. Maybe they have a good job, some comforts or a stable relationship. The options can be many. Even though they have achieved what they aspired to, they are not doing well.
Perhaps knowing how to give up is the solution to this eternal discomfort. In other words, achieving a balance between the enthusiasm to make our dreams come true and value what we have.
A period of malaise
Human beings have something in common, the desire to be well. And when we are well, to feel better. It is a positive unease that has allowed us to build knowledge, science and civilizations. We want to solve problems to get better, better and better …
However, in our age ” obtaining” and “being ” have become synonymous. What we are depends on what we get. “To be somebody” means to get recognition, money, prestige, fame or whatever. We have become what we can flaunt.
We live in an age where there seems to be an epidemic of unhappiness. Cases of mental disorders have increased in recent decades and most people complain about their lives.
Knowing how to give up
Life pushes us to multiple sacrifices. Most days if we do one thing, we stop doing another. We must choose. If we want a giant and wonderful house, this perhaps forces us to spend little time with our family to devote ourselves more effort to work.
If we want a stable relationship, we have to give up interesting new people that we happen to meet in the course of life.
Many do not understand, or do not want to accept, this aspect. They believe that true well-being can only be achieved if you have everything at the same time. Knowing how to give up is not part of their plans. In reverse. What they aspire to is to obtain, to accumulate, to win the complete package.
And this is precisely where the lie lies. Any decision implies a waiver. Any success has its price. It is not possible to have it all. Thus, each person defines what his or her priorities are. This is why knowing how to give up is essential.
Happiness is within us
We delude ourselves into thinking that we will be happier if we get this without losing that. We want the full package and when we don’t, we can feel very unhappy. We aspire to what we give up, instead of enjoying what we get through this renunciation. We always find ourselves choosing. but we often don’t notice it.
Maybe we end up getting irritated with ourselves because we don’t embody this ideal of “being”, which we don’t even construct. Then we begin to mistreat ourselves and to demand more of ourselves. A better job, a higher status, a perfect couple harmony, cover children and a very long one and so on. Ideals are such precisely because they are not part of concrete reality, but in the name of them we make our life hell by wearing ourselves out for what we do not have.
One thing is certain: either you are happy with little or you are not happy. When an inner balance is truly achieved, that voracious anxiety of having or being more ceases. This is possible only if you have acquired the ability to know how to give up. Happiness is an attitude that gives us enough strength to recognize what is really important to us, giving up the rest without regret or nostalgia.
