“Rule your thoughts, or it would rule you.” ~Buddha
I was trapped in a cycle of overthinking, replaying previous errors, worrying in regards to the future, and mentally holding onto each thought, simply as I bodily held onto outdated garments, books, and my youngster’s outgrown toys.
The concern of letting go—whether or not of bodily objects or persistent ideas—felt overwhelming. However I didn’t understand that this behavior of psychological hoarding was retaining me caught in place.
The Nervousness of Letting Go—My Final Day of Faculty
One in every of my earliest experiences with psychological hoarding occurred on my final day of faculty in 1996 earlier than my tenth-grade board exams. When my class instructor wished us “All the perfect, youngsters, in your board exams,” I all of the sudden realized—it was my final day in class. This thought had by no means crossed my thoughts earlier than, and it hit me onerous.
I’d spent over a decade there—eleven or twelve years—rising up, laughing, studying, crying, sharing tiffins, and dwelling via each second with my associates. The concept I’d by no means return to that life left me feeling overwhelmed with anxiousness and disappointment.
On that day, after I returned house, I couldn’t eat lunch, nor might I sleep effectively. I clutched my pillow tightly, as if I might cease time from transferring ahead. I stored replaying all of the moments, all of the reminiscences. The playground the place I ran and performed, the faucet I used to drink water from, the desk the place I sat each single day, the blackboard the place I nervously wrote solutions. However what really gutted me was I’d by no means see a few of my associates once more.
Again then, there was no Fb or Instagram to keep up a correspondence. If you happen to missed a day in school, you needed to ask somebody in individual what occurred, what they did over the weekend, and what their summer season trip was like. Faculty was the one solution to keep related. I felt like I used to be dropping part of myself.
I missed my night’s Taekwondo follow. I didn’t even have the vitality for dinner. I simply went to mattress, however my thoughts was stressed, spinning.
The subsequent morning, I awakened at 3 a.m. I didn’t know why, however I felt like I wanted to run. So, I dragged myself to the stadium the place I used to coach. I ran with all my power, threw punches and kicks into the air, and let loose loud screams with every motion.
Sweat drenched my physique, however I didn’t really feel drained. As a substitute, I felt the strain leaving my physique. As I sat on the bottom, watching the primary rays of the dawn, I noticed that point doesn’t cease for anybody. Each ending is a brand new starting.
This was the primary time I actually understood the facility of motion and mindfulness in releasing emotional baggage. I had been hoarding reminiscences, however by bodily participating with my feelings—via working, punching, and embracing the brand new day—I let go of the stiffness in my thoughts.
This was my first lesson on the age of fifteen: that generally, the toughest goodbyes convey the lightest hearts.
Unanswered Questions—Studying to Let Go
In 2002, I confronted one other occasion of psychological hoarding, however this time it was about unanswered questions and emotional attachment.
There was a woman from my college days who had been greater than a good friend. After college, we misplaced contact—there have been no cellphones or social media again then. For 5 to 6 years, I by no means thought-about pursuing anybody else, all the time questioning what she would assume if I did. Her presence lingered in my thoughts, retaining me from transferring ahead.
Lastly, in 2002, after seven lengthy years, I went to the college the place she was working as a instructor. There was a perform taking place that day, and amidst the gang, I gathered the braveness to suggest to her.
Tears stuffed her eyes as if she had been ready for that second, however she neither mentioned sure nor no. As a substitute, she spoke three traces, turned away, and left. I stood there, unable to maneuver, as if my ft have been rooted to the bottom. It felt like part of me had been left behind.
For days, I couldn’t focus on my research. My thoughts replayed these three traces again and again, looking for solutions that weren’t there.
Sooner or later, whereas battling my ideas, I used to be hitting a tennis ball in opposition to a wall, misplaced in frustration. In anger, I hit it too onerous, and it rebounded sooner than I anticipated. I jumped excessive to catch it, however after I landed, I felt a pointy ache—a hairline fracture in my proper foot. The physician put my leg in a forged, and for forty-five days, I used to be confined to my house.
Throughout that point, I had no selection however to sit down nonetheless. With nothing else to do, I turned my focus solely to learning for my CA-Inter examination. As I immersed myself in my research, I seen one thing—the reminiscences of that day not haunted me. With out realizing it, I had stopped looking for solutions. I appeared for my examination quickly after my forged was eliminated and handed efficiently.
On the age of twenty-two or twenty-three, I discovered a profound lesson: Some questions don’t have solutions, and the extra we chase them, the extra they eat us. The secret is to cease looking for that means in each unanswered second and transfer ahead.
The Energy of Letting Go
A turning level got here throughout my company nine-to-five job. I felt like a hen in a cage, determined to fly however held again by uncertainty. I needed to stop and begin my very own enterprise, however I spent two years mentally hoarding fears.
What if I fail? What about my monetary duties to my spouse and three-year-old son? The fixed loop of overthinking paralyzed me. I lastly broke free in September 2012, after I stop my job and have become a sub-broker within the inventory market. Letting go of concern was liberating. I not needed to be answerable to anybody, and I had the liberty I had all the time dreamed of.
This expertise taught me that, identical to bodily litter, psychological litter retains us caught.
One other highly effective realization got here to me in 2020 when my son insisted on shopping for a 55″ good TV. I had been holding onto my outdated CRT TV, the very very first thing I purchased with my earnings again in January 2006. It wasn’t simply an equipment—it was an emblem of my early struggles and achievements.
I remembered how I had gone to Shimla for work in a good friend’s automobile and excitedly bought it on the way in which. Although outdated, it nonetheless labored, and I clung to it, not due to its utility, however due to the reminiscences hooked up to it. Letting go felt like erasing part of my journey.
However in November 2020, I lastly gave it away to somebody in want and welcomed the brand new TV. It was solely then that I noticed that except you make area—whether or not in your house or your thoughts—new issues, new alternatives, and new methods of considering can’t enter. This lesson prolonged past possessions; it utilized to ideas, regrets, and self-imposed limitations.
Remorse is a Waste of Time—Classes from Skilled Life
I began investing and buying and selling in 2009. Again then, I purchased shares that have been buying and selling in two figures and offered them after holding them for a number of days or months at a 5-10% revenue. A decade later, a few of these shares have been buying and selling in 4 figures, and the considered what I might have gained was painful. The remorse of “What if I had held onto them?” haunted me.
However then, I mirrored and realized that each choice I made—each shopping for and promoting—was mine, based mostly on the situations on the time. Simply as some shares grew tremendously, others that when traded in 4 figures misplaced their worth fully. I’ve purchasers who name me day by day, expressing remorse about missed alternatives. They noticed a inventory at a decrease degree, hesitated to purchase, and later noticed it leap by 25% or extra. The cycle of remorse is countless.
Over time, I’ve skilled myself to cease overthinking previous trades. Now, I focus solely on my current trades, whether or not I make a revenue or a loss. If a chance presents itself right this moment, I act with out hesitation as an alternative of dwelling on missed possibilities.
This expertise taught me an necessary lesson: If we can’t change our previous choices, there may be no use in regretting them. As a substitute, we should always concentrate on what we are able to do now.
The Largest Lesson—Accepting Life’s Impermanence
The most important lesson I discovered got here from an surprising place, one which I by no means imagined would go away such an affect. Within the northern a part of India, particularly in Punjab, the place I dwell, there’s a pageant known as Basant Panchami, celebrated with a lot pleasure and enthusiasm. It normally falls in January, and one of many key traditions is flying kites.
In 2018, the pageant was on January twenty second, and the day earlier than, I went to the market with my youthful brother to purchase kites and strings. We have been each keen about flying kites since childhood, and that day, we have been thrilled, filled with laughter and pleasure. We spent the morning taking part in music, dancing, and flying kites collectively, identical to we had performed for years.
However what I didn’t know, what I might by no means have predicted, was that day can be the final time I’d expertise this with my youthful brother. In June 2018, my brother left this world, and that was the second I absolutely grasped the burden of what I had misplaced.
From that day till the Basant pageant in 2025, I stored the 19 kites we had purchased that day, unable to fly them, as a result of they jogged my memory of him. It felt like if I flew these kites, I’d in some way be letting go of the one piece left of him. Annually, because the spring pageant got here round, I’d maintain on to these kites tightly, preserving the reminiscence of the day we spent collectively.
However this yr, one thing modified. At the 2025’s Basant pageant, I lastly let go. I flew these nineteen kites. As they soared within the sky, I noticed that we had purchased these kites to have a good time, to take pleasure in life, and my brother would have needed me to do the identical.
Holding on to them, retaining them protected, was only a means of avoiding the reality: life strikes on, and generally, the extra tightly you maintain on to one thing, the extra you lose within the course of. It jogged my memory that, just like the sand slipping out of your hand while you grip it too tightly, life too should be lived with openness and acceptance.
That realization hit me onerous: life is sort of a transferring practice. We’re all passengers on that practice, and ultimately, every passenger leaves when their station arrives, whereas others proceed their journey. Each dwelling factor on this Earth will vanish someday. Holding on to the previous, to reminiscences, to the “what ifs,” solely weighs us down.
I had been hoarding my ideas and feelings for therefore lengthy, considering I might protect them and hold them protected. However this lesson—via the act of lastly flying these kites—helped me understand how harmful overthinking will be.
It was time to cease hoarding my reminiscences and feelings. Life is consistently transferring ahead, and holding on too tightly to what’s gone solely prevents me from having fun with the current.
I discovered that it’s okay to let go, to free myself from overthinking, and to embrace what is going on now. Similar to the kites within the sky, my brother’s reminiscence will all the time be with me, however I’ve to dwell my life absolutely, with out concern of letting go.
The lesson I discovered is easy but profound: cease hoarding your ideas, free your self from overthinking, and permit your self to actually dwell. Life strikes ahead, and so should we.
Ultimate Ideas
Freedom from psychological litter is feasible. As soon as I let go of the ideas that not served me, I made area for readability, braveness, and development. And identical to my profession shift, I noticed the one solution to really transfer ahead is to cease hoarding and begin dwelling.
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