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Credit: DH Illustration
Even as we keep growing and branching out in the now, our roots remain connected to what we see and learn in our childhood. It is like going backwards in a train; everything vanishes quickly and yet you become keenly aware of the beauty and wisdom in moments as you revisit them.
My parents play cards to amuse themselves and to fritter away time. When we were young we often played with them and anyone else who cared to join in.
Some of those games required us to form a pair and it so happened that more often than not my father and I teamed up. A lot of the games we played required us to hold on to particular cards and let go of them at the right time to win the game. When we won, my father would applaud the exact moment when I dropped the right card creating a domino effect that led to us to triumph. And when we lost, he again suggested I should
have dropped a certain card at a particular moment.
Now, when I watch my parents play cards, I find myself ruminating on how life inadvertently teaches us things that we often understand in retrospect. Just like in the game of cards, in life, it’s hard to reach a fulfilling conclusion unless you let go, at the right time, things, people and situations that hold you back from moving up and forward.
There is a time to hold on to things, and more importantly, there is a time to let them go.
Sometimes, you’ll even find that letting go is necessary; simply for the reason that what you are holding on to is heavy and the burden lays leaden on your happiness. Unless you let go, realize that the situation is over, you are unable to move forward. You have to literally and figuratively drop the card from your hand. It has to go so that you can plan again and readjust what you are dealt with.
Letting go develops greater acceptance for the present moment, freeing up mental and emotional energy to actualise how you want things to be. You cannot change the cards life dealt you, but you sure can shed the ones you don’t want to hold anymore.
There is good in goodbye.