Loss

Many claims are made about loss.

With great frequency, by many people, statements are made that address the loss of a particular item, memory, thought, idea, or emotion.

“I’ve lost my car keys! What will I do?”

“I can’t seem to recall the details of that particular trip, but I can assure you, it was a great one!”

“I was just about to tell you something that I was thinking about, but it’s gone.”

“I had the best product idea yesterday, but today it’s slipping my mind.”

“I was so confident about that feeling, but now that I’m reflecting on it, I’m not so sure.”

These, and many other examples, we experience routinely, even daily. We readily acknowledge our losses.  We recognize the absence of items, or elements that we once confidently believed in our possession.

Strangely, we are reluctant to admit, recognize, or verbalize our gains.

When we find our keys, we don’t celebrate, we simply sigh in relief.

When we remember the details of the sunset on that special trip, we don’t call up our best friends to tell them the specifics of the inadvertently omitted item,  we are simply content in the recall.

When we remember that item which had been lost in our nebulous mind fog, we don’t interject, mid-conversation, (well, some might) to say “I remember what I was thinking about, let me tell you now!”

When the product idea comes back to us, we wait to the appropriately strategic  time, to present the innovation.

When we release, or lose, a passionate emotion such as anger, which in the moment felt so intense, and justified, the reflection upon such a feeling isn’t supported by statement like “That time when I was so angry!” or “I felt great when I was incensed!”  It’s usually recalled with sentiments similar to, “I’m glad I’m not feeling that anymore,” or “I’m so happy that I’m not feeling that way now.”  There usually isn’t an expression of gain when it comes to balancing feelings.

The truly intriguing thing about loss, is that we try to apply the terminology to things, or situations, or people, that we never truly possess.

To be able to lose something, one must have possession of it.

No one can say that they lost someone else.  You cannot possess a person.

You can’t say you lost your home, because the plot of land, and the construct sitting upon it, never really belonged to you, nor the governmental entities that portioned off, and created a title, temporarily awarding you custody of a section of the earth.

You can’t lose your body, your mind, nor your soul.  These are forever attached to you, they can’t be portioned off, or assimilated by another.

What you can lose is yourself.  You can lose who you are.  You can compromise and lose your integrity.  You can sell yourself short, and lose sight of your goals.  You can misplace the true direction of your spirit.  You can set aside and forget about the burning star that is your soul.

The good news, is that despair is not the necessary default, when experiencing loss.  Though the innate bend is to be more focused on loss, over gain, when it comes to yourself, the swell of the tides of loss can be redirected.  The predominant focus on loss is a critical failure in human nature.  We focus on all of the things that we are without, instead of all of the incredible elements that are within.

What we have, what we possess, what we own, and what truly matters, is ourselves.  As long as we live, that is a positive. As long as we breathe, that is a gain.  As long as blood flows in our veins, that is more than enough of a plus.

Focus on what you have, and what you gain every day, and losses will feel less significant, less troublesome, and less impactful.

Forget about all the things not worth remembering, don’t bother trying to recall the lost, fragmented, damaged past.

Forge your own direction, from steel and resolve, and a lack of hindsight.  The past is lost, and a loss to not recall.

The future, a positive one, is the ultimate gain, and the one that makes your soul smile.

Humbly yours,

J