Let it Go

You know where most of our anxiety and stress comes from? Dealing with Other People^TM.

Sometimes, I am terribly vexed by Other People. They do irrational things. They deceive me. They let me down. They behave in unpredictable ways.

They don’t return your text messages. They don’t return your phone calls. They don’t do things on your schedule.

Let’s start off by talking about the Three Cs:

- Didn’t Cause it

- Can’t Cure it

- Can’t Control it

I have a friend who has lost his mind. Gone right out of his tree. I have made a habit of checking in on him every few weeks to see how he is doing, but his behavior is so inexplicable that I think that is no longer possible. Am I upset about it? Damn right I am upset about it. Am I going to be able to get him to unfuck himself? Absolutely not.

Didn’t cause it. Can’t cure it. Can’t control it.

Therefore, let it go.

Next time, when someone is giving you a migraine, ask yourself those three questions. Did you cause it? Can you cure it? Can you control it? The vast majority of the time, the answer to those questions is no, and you should let it go. Don’t let someone else’s behavior affect your serenity. Don’t let someone else’s behavior disturb your peace. The only thing that should affect your peace and serenity is your behavior, and that is something you have control over.

There is a lot to say here, about codependence. I know what codependence means, but I wanted to look it up, so I can give you the precise definition. It’s excessive emotional or psychological reliance on a partner, typically one who requires support on account of an illness or addiction. There is a book called Codependence No More. I read the first few chapters and put it down, because I got the gist of it pretty quickly (I do this with a lot of books). The opening chapters are about partners, usually women, who are so emotionally invested in shielding their spouse from the consequences of their actions that they become psychologically and physically ill. They internalize all of their partner’s failures. Now, this isn’t strictly limited to married couples—lots of people are codependent with their kids. Lots of people. How many people do you know who has a son or daughter who somehow doesn’t live up to expectations, like, the kid loses the spelling bee/football game/wrestling tournament, or worse, has a substance abuse problem or gets arrested, and/or kicked out of school. How many times have you seen the parents devastated when this happens? There is shame associated with it.

Didn’t cause it. Can’t cure it. Can’t control it. Let it go.

But we can’t let it go. We internalize the other person’s defects of character, taking them on as our own. My husband’s failure is my failure. My kid’s failure is my failure. I’m sure anyone with kids can probably tell you that nature is much more powerful than nurture, and your ability to shape these little human beings into productive members of society is actually quite limited. Good parents give birth to serial killers. Bad parents give birth to billionaires. Codependence is a powerful drug, and I’m sure every parent who is reading this, or any spouse who is married to an addict of some sort has lost a great deal of sleep thinking about the other person’s shortcomings. There is absolutely nothing you can do about it. There’s not much sense in spending a lot of emotional energy on it. Focus on the things you can control, right?

I have never read Marcus Aurelius, and I honestly haven’t done a lot of work on the stoics, but people tell me all the time that my writing is grounded in stoicism. Maybe true. I know some stoics who are assholes, so the stoics do not have all the answers. But there is definitely something to be said for focusing on things you can control. And spiritual enlightenment occurs when you realize that the universe of things you can control is…practically nothing.

I took the new BMW through the car wash today. The price has gone from $8 to $15 (probably private equity) and there is nothing I can do about that, either. Anyway, you know how in the car wash there are a couple of guys with hoses who spray down your car before it goes in the car wash? Well, I was following the car in front of me into the car wash, and apparently, I was following a bit too closely, because one of the sprayer guys freaks out and starts screaming at me to stop. I didn’t like this much, because I’m a customer, right, and you shouldn’t be yelling at the customers. I let him say his piece and I sat there patiently, waiting to go in. He calmed down and sprayed down my car and in I went. You know what would have made my day a lot worse? If I got out my $100,000 car and started yelling back. The dude is getting paid $12 an hour, it’s pollen season, it’s a busy day at the car wash, and apparently spraying down cars is stressful, so I cut him some slack. Didn’t cause it. Can’t cure it. Can’t control it. I let it go. Now I am sitting on the couch, and I don’t have an emotional hangover from getting into a screaming match with the car wash guy, and I will sleep well tonight. I hope his day got better.

Letting go is very powerful stuff. You can use it on just about anything. Someone make an asshole remark to you at work five years ago, and you’ve been holding a grudge all this time? Let it go. Your father beat you when you were a kid? Let it go. Terrorists blew up your fucking building? Let that go, too. You can’t control any of this stuff, you can’t cure it, and you didn’t cause it. Why are you wasting all this emotional energy on it? There is something to be said for wearing life like a loose garment.

I had someone tell me when I was in my 30s that I was allowed to have a resentment for 24 hours. If it lasted longer than that, then there was something wrong with me, not the other person. I tried that for a while, and it didn’t work. I found that I would have resentments against other people for days and weeks. These days, like in the car wash, my resentments last seconds. Getting upset at other people’s behavior is one of the biggest wastes of energy that I can think of. Now, maybe there are some situations where you do have some control. You have an employee who is screwing up. You do have the ability to fire them. Or, take some other corrective action. If your boss is a dickhead, there is not much you can do about that.

In 2008, at Lehman Brothers, I was not promoted to Senior Vice President. Wow, did that set me off. I had nightmares about it. My obsessive-compulsive disorder went through the roof. I even went to the trouble to try to transfer to the treasury bond desk. The funny thing was that I didn’t fully appreciate how much I had been wounded by this. I was seeing a therapist at the time, and the therapist kept telling me that my job was the source of my anxiety, and I dismissed him, saying no, no, I love my job. Well, when Lehman Brothers bought the farm, all the anxiety went away. He was right. Now, let’s think about this for a minute. I put myself through a year of hell, for what? I had no control over it. I walked around dreaming up homicidal revenge fantasies for an entire year for absolutely no reason at all. That wasn’t very emotionally healthy. But you know what? Most people are like this! Most people have no ability whatsoever to let things go. I should have said to myself, welp, I’ll get promoted next year, and done the best job I possibly could, which is something that was in my control. One side note here: working in a big, dumb organization, like a corporation or the government, you will frequently find yourself in situations like this, which is the main reason I became an entrepreneur. I could never work in an organization again—I have gone feral. I even look feral.

I know some people who will get mad at the weather. Holy crap! The definition of something that you can’t control. Even worse than that are the people who get mad about politics, which is a topic for another newsletter. Is politics within your control? Well, you can vote. Or you can donate to a candidate. Or you can write a letter to the editor. Or you can run for office yourself. Those are your options. I choose door number three: do nothing, because politicians and politically active people are some of the most mentally ill people you will come across, because they think everything is within their control. When was the last time you saw one of these people let something go?

I was on X today (shame on me) and people were taking potshots at Oprah for saying that there is an obesity gene, and that your weight (within certain parameters) is not in your control. You know what? She’s right. And not just scientifically right, but psychologically right. Let it go. Some people are predisposed to being fat. Some people are predisposed to being skinny. If you expend a huge amount of effort, you will have some temporary control over your genetics, but genetics takes over eventually, and there is nothing you can do about it. This is where you practice acceptance for the body that God gave you. And gratitude. I don’t know many grateful, unhappy people.

Stop carrying that shit around. Imagine what your mind could do if you could free it from the shackles of codependence, grudges, and resentment. I did, and you can see the results.