Letting the old hope go

I'm finding that one of the reasons it's difficult to throw things away is that we feel we're throwing away the hope that the object represents.

For me, each of the hundreds of books on my overstuffed shelves represented The Answer when I bought it.  The questions were different at various times in my life, but each book was going to provide me with The Answer to my problems, doubts, and worries. Or at least An Answer.

I've always looked to books for insight, which isn't a problem, but it's hard to remember that the insight actually comes from within me, not from the paper and ink.  When I read something and have that Aha! moment, it's a recognition, not an alien invasion. Something inside my being knows the truth of what I'm reading.

And realistically, most of the books that really have sparked new awareness for me have been accidental finds.  I was looking for something else when I stumbled across Lovingkindness, the book that taught me a meditation that opened my heart.  (Of course, it was practicing the meditation, not the book sitting on my shelf, that changed me.)  Some of the books I desired most turned out to be not very inspiring, while others I was very skeptical about led me beside the still waters.

But the books that I love are not clutter.  I'm keeping those.  It's the ones that I so hoped would bring me solace, insight, joy, or peace - but didn't have that power.  My shelves sometimes seemed like a record of folly and failure.  It feels safer just to walk by, head down, and not look at them.  But going through them and choosing which to let go of is forgiving myself.  Forgiving myself for believing what I was taught, after all:  that things hold magic, that someone else is the expert on life, and that more is always better.

Maybe your thing isn't books.  Maybe it's clothing:  the fancy dress you hoped you'd wear at some mythical party that never happened; the tiny jeans you wanted to fit into; the coat that made you look like someone you wanted to be.

Maybe it's that complicated exercise machine that was going to create a new you.  The materials for that new hobby that never took off.  The fragrance that would lure a new love.

Shoes.  Sports equipment.  Anything that we collected not for the sheer joy of using it, but for what we hoped it would bring us.  In a sense, they're all burned-out cheap magic tricks.  We don't need them.  Our hope, our wisdom, our love doesn't come from them - despite what advertising has been telling us all our lives.

But I can testify, it takes a lot of courage to face all this and let go.  So far, it's worth it, though.