Practicing the Subtle Art of Detachment

From everything that I recall about my life so far, I can say one thing with absolute certainty. I have been an extremely passionate person. Passionate about everything. Be it life in general, work, friendships, relationships. Bustling with energy, I have always liked to give my heart, my soul, my mind, and my energy completely into things that matter to me. I take the leap and I go all in like there is no middle spot. And that always seemed to work for me. I was always on the high wave, getting things done, maintaining the happiest relationships and believing with certainty that I could achieve absolutely anything. Until, I reached a day when the things that really mattered to me were at a point of collapse and I collapsed along with them. And my story is not really unique in this sense. 

Mental fatigue and burnout is almost like the epidemic of the century. Some of the brightest people with immense energy and passion go through this phase of extreme exhaustion which might last for months if not years. And that's because there is a bit of a downside of being too passionate. To put it simply, when you go about attaching your happiness, your existence, and your life’s meaning too deeply with your work, your relationships or anything else for that matter, you put yourself at risk.

And why is that? Because with attachment comes a very strong urge to control the circumstances. While you can exercise some amount of control over what happens in your life, that will absolutely never eliminate the possibility of things going haywire or the possibility of your plans and ambitions not quite turning into reality. You put yourself at risk because you put so much of yourself into something unwilling to believe that there is a tiny chance that it might not quite work out the way you plan. And I don’t deny that this kind of confidence is necessary. It is probably the only reason behind strong risk-taking capabilities and subsequent achievements. 

That’s why the problem hasn’t entirely got to do with being passionate alone. Passion is everything, after all. Defined as ‘a strong and barely controllable desire’, feeling passionate is what makes you feel alive. The problem turns out to be with delusional thinking. Remember how people say "Love is blind"? What they essentially imply there is that feeling too much passion and attachment towards something can skew our perception of it. It can make us unwilling to accept the possibility of things going wrong. It can make us unwilling to see the flaws in our plan. It can make us oblivious to the truth that is right in front of us.

Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached. So if the ceiling breaks and things go wrong one after the other, because sometimes they do despite your best efforts, you might find yourself really struggling to cope up. But does that mean passion is a bad thing? Should you never give yourself completely into anything? Should you not love unconditionally and whole-heartedly? Should you not embrace life fully with enthusiasm and be ready to take risks? I don’t think so. But you should always and always stick to an idea of ‘self’ that is independent of anything else in your life. Remain in the world, act in the world, do whatsoever is needful, and yet remain transcendental, aloof, detached, a lotus flower in the pond. Is there anything that remains when I strip your life of your work and your deepest relationships for a while? Is there a core within you that is separate, detached and at peace irrespective of how things go in your life? Or are you constantly on a roller coaster ride based on what happens? Exhilarated because great things are happening at work, miserable because the last batch of orders didn’t get delivered on time and customers left bad reviews.

Exhilarated because things are going well in your relationship, miserable because he/she suddenly stopped giving you enough time. Letting the things that you feel passionate about dictate your mood, your energy levels and your overall enthusiasm towards life is not a very healthy approach as you are relying over something external, something that is not entirely under your control to dictate your life. The only difference between people who collapse after failure/loss and those who dust themselves off and start again quickly is that the latter know and practice the art of detachment. 

What exactly is the art of detachment? It’s the art of withdrawing desire from lesser things, letting them fall away, so as to harness their power to reach the heights of what a human being can attain. Oxymoronic though it may sound, it’s said that you can achieve the greatest heights only through detaching yourself from the things that matter to you to a certain extent and by taking a step back. And it doesn’t mean that you should always feel detached either. It just means that you should be capable of practicing detachment when required. To be attached is to live in the fear that what you want will not materialise and traps you in a continuous state of desire.

Từ vựng nổi bật