Looking back to my life, 2013 has been the worst year ever. Of course it wasn’t entirely bad, but in average it was way worse than all the years before. So many things changed for me in 2013. I have lost many things I didn’t want to lose. I gave up many things I never thought I would give up. And most importantly, I’ve learned that life is fragile and can end any time.

In fact life is not fair, not at all. It never has been and it will never be. But there is no point in complaining or whining about that. The point is to accept that and to make the best out of it. But this requires to let go certain things. Letting go of beloved people, taken out of your life suddenly, letting go of family members, letting go of material items, letting go of emotional items, filled with memories, letting go of dreams and plans, letting go of habits, letting go of comforts and life style, letting go of expectations. And all this is damned hard. But if I have learned one thing the last year, desperately trying to keep and hold things simply does not work. On the contrary, you’ll lose them even faster and there is a high chance to fall ill or become depressive during the process.

And what do we do? We have our arms full of items, more than we can carry. And we are trying desperately to avoid that one or more items will fall down. We bend ourselves and make lots of efforts to hold all the items. We are so focussed and busy managing all this that we don’t even have the chance to look around us, to look forward, to think if we really need to hold all these items. And more items come on top every day. And what do we do? Putting even more effort to hold all of them. Maybe placing some on our shoulders and head if the arms can’t carry more. Yes, just a little bit more effort and it should be doable. Until it really becomes too much and we break down because of the weight or we’ll run out of power and everything will fall down at once, in the worst moment.

But there is no need to. The solution I’ve found for myself is to let go, consciously and continuously. Embrace the change and let go. Put items on the ground you don’t really need to carry. Reduce the amount of items you carry to the essential. Restrict the number of items until they fit into a box you can carry under one arm and let go everything else. And suddenly you have the capacity to look around you, suddenly you realize the beauty of life, suddenly you can see the path on front of you. And letting go is the key. It’s so easy, isn’t it?