To Persevere and Let Go

Perseverance and letting go are both positive qualities that we all possess. However, despite their being life-enhancing qualities, these are often complementary and even antagonistic to each other, and need to be employed in sequence, and at  the right time, rather than in isolation for us to achieve success peace and harmony.

“Try, trying till you succeed” is something we’ve all been taught in school. Success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration, we’re told, to highlight the importance of hard work. And work we must, for that is the very nature of life Karma Yoga, as outlined in the Bhagavad Gita by Krishna speaks highly of work as a form of worship. Swami Vivekananda persuaded his followers to work ceaselessly till the goal is reached.

Success is determined by a combination of factors. Hard work is only one of them. Besides hard work, we also need talent, inspiration, creativity, luck and destiny. While most of us work hard, true success and joy come only to some, while most others have to remain content with whatever they get.

This brings us to the relationship between perseverance and letting go. Perseverance is the quality of sticking to one’s job and to one’s goals, come what may. Letting go, on the other hand, is exactly the opposite. It consists of putting one’s faith and trusts in a higher power, whether we call it God or destiny waiting patiently for results. While these two qualities may seem to be opposites they are, in fact, not go; they are complementary to each other.

Every venture, dream and project needs divine grace for its successful completion. Those who decline to believe in the power of the unknown are likely to continue struggling and will have to depend solely on their own efforts. They could meet with limited success, often hitting roadblocks which seem insurmountable or which drain away tremendous amounts of time, energy and money. The human mind and the ego are such that giving credit goes not come easily. This is not only true where other people are concerned, but our mind and ego often do not even want to acknowledge the power that runs the universe, day in and wanting to find it difficult to let go and trust.

Hard work and perseverance are absolutely necessary, doubtless. But somewhere along the course, after having exhausted all human possibilities, one must learn to sit back, be detached form the outcome of our efforts, and hand over our endeavors to a higher power. How and when to do this is purely an intuitive or instinctive phenomenon. When we sincerely let go, not out of laziness, complacency and lethargy but after having done our very best, it is then that the process of life shifts to another plane, with the unseen hand coming into play. And the power or destiny works in myriad ways. A chance meeting, something overheard or read in the newspapers, the stirring of a memory, a different thought process, and sudden release of funds that had dried up – something is likely to happen, which would put our work and project back on track.

When success becomes palpable, it is important to remember and acknowledge and give thanks to existence, without proudly proclaiming that everything was achieved only by our own perseverance.

You must understand the whole of life, not just one little part of it. That is why you must read, that is why you must look at the skies, that is why you must sing and dance, and write poems and suffer and understand for all that is life. Surely, life is not merely a job, an occupation; life is something extraordinary wide and profound, it is a great mystery a vast realm in which we function as human beings.