Practicing Unattachment
my reflection questions and principles for living a stoic life.
According to yogic philosophy, a yogi should not get caught up in samsara. Otherways called in Hinduism and Buddhism the cycle of rebirth or suffering.
One of the many truths Sidharta said was:
‘‘As long as there is attachment there will be suffering.’’
If you think about it, everything in this world is continuously changing. Even the observer, you, is changing by every interaction in this universe.
Whereas most intelligent people go beyond materialism, they still fall in the trap of clutching to specific ideas:
- Love should last forever.
- According to my personality, I have these morals or values.
- Strangers should respect me because of my degree(s)
- I studied for many years that should correspond with my paycheck.
Collectively we tend to forget that money, time, and education are systems invented by humankind to bring structure to our perceived chaos.
The kidnapping of the mind.
The trap of samsara or karma is like a golden cage. Because you are responsible for your mental state,
You are the only one accountable for the appropriate response to painful experiences.
Stoicism in a nutshell.
Try to be proactive about what you want to manifest in your life and don’t waste time worrying about what exists outside your control.
Take a person who is in chronical suffering in the form of physical pain, for example, in rheumatism and mental decline in the disease of Alzheimer.
Such an impactful diagnosis comes as a shock to most individuals.
The initial reaction is that the perceived pain will weight you down in most daily activities.
Besides healing such conditions, by, for example, using alternative methods, the acknowledgment of chronical suffering can allow you to focus all that energy on a subject of your interest.
Take Stevie Wonder; he became blind because of an accident in the hospital’s incubator. Did that ever stop him from becoming one of the most successful musicians of 20 century?
“Just because a man lacks the use of his eyes doesn’t mean he lacks vision.” — Stevie Wonder on Blindness
Essentialism
My practice of nonattachment started after I had read the book Goodbye, Things, written by the Japanese minimalist and editor Fumio Sasaki.
According to him, we fill our lives with objects that steal our attention.
Like a guitar, you once bought to pick up a musical hobby. After you tried to set up a daily practice routine, you just left it at the wall, so friends can play it when they come by. Every time you enter your living room, it hangs on the wall as a silent reminder of what you once wanted.
Other examples are books gives by friends and family which do not pique your interest. You feel obliged to read them, but if it were up to, you would give them as a gift to someone who could appreciate it.
Minimalism can mean that everything you own has instrumental value in your life.
Essentialism is the conscious practices of choosing objects in your life that give you intrinsic value.
An essentialist can have pictures of friends, paintings, a Star Wars action figure collection, but only if he or she gives daily appreciation to these objects.
Friendships
The hardest challenge is not parting with materialism or consumerism but leaving people who do not longer energize you.
We all have toxic people in our lives — especially the people who are friendly towards everybody.
It takes me tremendous effort to accept the harsh realities like:
- I keep certain friendships from childhood friends alive because it is too hard to acknowledge that we have grown apart.
- I want to help this person to improve his or her life, which results in a shift of dynamics friendship to a student-mentor relationship or in reverse.
- I perceive someone as lonely and think they could use some companionship.
Society teaches you to love thy family. But If you think about it, you did not choose them.
The sad truth is that we perceive most people attempts to help as annoying. Even though most people are offering you an outsider perspective to the best of their ability. The rationale behind this is that we all have unique distorted reality filter, which has different definitions of help, helping and appropriate timing.
Relationships
Saying goodbye to love is complicated. Attachment psychology shows us how fast we attach and why to tend to be attracted to the ‘wrong person.’ For more depth read the book Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find — and Keep — Love of Levine and Heller.
Some dating advice I learned of the years is that people have a lot of trouble to disentangle after they have had physical intimacy. The likelihood of ending up in a relationship with someone after you have sex doubles as opposed to when you just kissed.
My datings rules:
- The Drinks Date, where we exchange life values, like dreams, passions, and insight into human dynamics.
- The Activity Date, I try to participate in physical activity to see how we would function as a team.
- The Dinner Date, where we would talk about family, friends, colleagues, etc., to get each other circles in perspective.
If after three dates, you feel it that you have a right balance between attractiveness, brains, and the WOW factor, you can jump anytime you want in the bed.
Personal Growth
The most difficult practice of unattachment is accepting neuroplasticity.
According to this concept in neuroscience, it means that we the power to fundamentally change every wiring pattern of the brain.
Which means that personality, values, ideas are in constant development.
What I tend to do is reflection exercises, with specific questions:
- Is this belief about A or B still serving me?
- How did this believe came into my perspective?
- Do I perceive these limitations as an overprotective barrier or as an individualized door to keep unwanted results out?
- Which values of my life would I like people to talk about at my funeral?
“‘If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?’ If the Answer is ‘no’ for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” — Steve Jobs
Conclusion
It takes courage to face your inner demons and to let go.
But it gives me meaning and the inner strength to face the problems of the day. I wish you good luck if you decide to walk this road.
This blog post is #4 of the 30-day blog challenge.
