It’s so easy to buy a jar of salsa, some mustard, or a new flavor of bbq sauce. Each costs less than $5, and they’re easily procured at the grocery store–dropped in my cart with a small passing inclination.
And yet, as summer turns to fall, and the grill is covered up for the winter, there may still be salsa, mustard, or bbq sauce left in the jar. And soon the fridge is full of jars of mostly finished condiments, which grow stale and unappetizing the longer they sit.
It’s hard to justify getting rid of one of these almost-empty jars. “But it’s still good,” I say to myself. “I don’t want to be wasteful!” I mourn.
Proper disposal means emptying the contents, rinsing, then letting it dry for the recycling. A lot of work, compared to what it took to bring that item into my life (grabbing it off the shelf at the store).
If it were someone else’s almost-empty salsa jar, I’d have few qualms about disposing it. But when it’s mine, I feel a connection to it. It has a pull on me.
The bigger lesson here is that it’s easy to take on a lot of things. An extra responsibility at work, a volunteer position, a chore within the household–but it’s much harder to let them go.
There’s excitement, adrenaline, hopefulness when saying yes. When revoking our yes–when our yes becomes no–there’s guilt, fear, and a sinking feeling that we’re doing something wrong.
Despite this, it’s important to be able to let things go. If we’re going to feel the freedom to experiment and try new things, we also need to be willing to call an end to the experiment, to create space in our lives to keep being able to try new things.
Our attention and energy are too important to be bridled in, held back, by a sense of unnecessary obligation.
(I say unnecessary because, in many situations, it really will be okay if we let go of our role. Of course, there are situations where this is not as easily true).
Your joy and peace and freedom-from-guilt are worth the loss of that small outstanding benefit, of the remaining potential that you won’t realize by giving that thing up.
We’ll all benefit from the refreshed, energized, hopeful person you are when you have the space to say yes to the urges and invitations calling to you right now.