From Attachment To Freedom
“If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.” ― Lao Tzu,
How often we get attached to things comes back hunting us when we can’t let go of it any longer.
People get attached to things easily for no reason. Attachment can be in terms of money, love, art, sex, drugs and relationship.
What happens when we become so attached to things that it begins to take or have a negative effect on us? The worst part of it all is that people don’t even know when they get attached to things more, they confuse it as being their love for it or whatever reasons they can come up with.
The more we hold on to things, the more we find it difficult to let go. The worst part of getting attached to things is that it changes our perspective in a way that you hardly can see any flaws to it.
I have been a victim, and still a victim to it, that’s why there is always room for learning and improvement for growth to happen.
People become attached to certain objects to satisfy certain emotional needs and the threat of loss of the object triggers anxiety because it threatens the loss of the status the person has earned.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be attained only by someone who is detached. Simone Weil
People who are attached to social media metrics likes, claps, followers, upvotes see no wrong in whatever they do as long as they are getting that metrics or validation even if it involves going to the extreme to get it. Same goes with money too as well, we are no longer attached to money but rather we have become a slave to it. Money will solve everything they say when I have it, forgetting that rich people themselves sometimes live a miserable life and still commit suicide.
The cycle goes on and on daily in our lives. The more we grow, the more we feel the need to get attached to things rather it should be vice versa freeing ourselves more by opening ourselves to new things.
I wouldn’t say if it is because of the present world we live in is why we have become more attached to things or because we live in a world where there is excess of everything from money, food, sex, drugs, information, opinions, crime and they keep preaching more is better even when it keeps harming us all.
I have a friend who was once an avid reader since he started focusing more on the social space, his reading declined. Told him you need to cut down on your social media his reply I know what am doing, I have it under control trust me. It got to a point that it was until his phone got missing before he knew all he was doing on social media is for validation.
The more our attachment to things keep growing or increasing, the more we feel the need for it and the more we feel its need, the more we become attached to it. Something we can’t do without.
“The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.”~Epictetus
Freedom
Am not saying we shouldn’t love or get on our social apps and crave for like or followers or make money. Of course, money is freedom and nothing more; that is why we should be focusing more on freedom and not wealth. And it should be minimal because we need to know when to pause and constantly reevaluate ourselves for what our purpose is.
As Humans, we live in constant denial, telling ourselves we have everything under control and in reality, we do not. Until we start to accept things for what it is and start opening ourselves up for new things can we begin to see our lives change?
When all attachments fall away, what remains is a reality. When we see things without the veil of our attachments, we realize life delicious, pure, luminous, and true.
