In the course of our life, we leave and are left and let go of much that we love. Losing is the price we pay for living. It is also the source of much of our growth and gain. Making our way from birth to death, we also have to make our way through the pain of giving up some portion of what we cherish.
These losses are linked to our gains.
Leaving the blurred-boundary bliss of mother-child oneness, we become a conscious, unique and separate individual, exchanging the illusion of absolute shelter and safety for triumphant anxieties of standing alone.
In bowing to the forbidden and the impossible, we become a moral, responsible adult and discover that our freedom and choices are within the limitations imposed by necessity.
In giving up impossible expectations and unmet needs, we become a lovely connected self, renounce ideal visions of perfect friendship, marriage, children, family life for the sweet imperfections of all human relationships.
The answer to the question “Is it this or that?” is often “Both”.
We love and we hate the same person.
The same person is both good and bad.
Although the course of our life is marked with repetition and continuity, it is also remarkably open to change. ……
Our losses and gains are frequently inextricably mixed. There are plenty we have to give up in order to grow. We can not deeply love anything without becoming vulnerable to lose. We can not become separate people, responsible peoples, connected people, reflective people without some losing and leaving and letting go.
We have to deal with our necessary losses and subsequent gains in our whole life.
(Excerpted from Necessary Losses)
(I appreciate my friend for recommending this wonderful book to me.)
