Letting go

So many of us are increasingly turning to meditation and similar forms of stress relief:

Breathing exercises, meditation and the practice of “letting go” of stress, or the thoughts that are creating it. 

And then we go back to our daily routines, trying to control every moment of the day,  undoing all the good work our meditation just achieved.

Because as predictable as ever, things simply move at their own pace:

The lights will change.

The traffic will open up.

The rain will stop. 

The laundry will dry.

Yet we spend our lives in a perpetual state of crises management for no reason whatsoever.

Of course there are times when we absolutely need to be in control of a situation: a life threatening emergency for example, is probably not the moment to practice “ going with the flow”.

But somehow, at some point, we started treating almost every task in a day as though it carries the same level of urgency,  something to be dealt with, right now. 

I remember in my early days here, spinning around a local supermarket, picking up my groceries exactly as I would have done in London. The staff were watching me in awe. To them, I must have looked like a whirlwind flying down the aisles. 

Later,  when I thought about it, there was no reason for such an aggressive retail expedition: I had no where to be and even if I did, guaranteed the other party will be late too! 

I began to notice the same thing in business.

Looking back, so many times, after renegotiating delivery dates with factories in the South Continent, I would find myself chasing those deliveries, only for them to arrive on the original date anyway.

It took moving here for me to understand that perhaps they weren’t late at all.

They knew their timelines. They understood the pace of the culture and the realities of getting things done. They were delivering exactly when they said they would, before I had insisted that they agree to an earlier date. 

Everything I aim to do, gets done. just at its own pace.

And once I understood that, I found myself relaxing. I started letting go of so much unnecessary stress,  the constant need to hurry, chase, push and control outcomes that were, quite frankly, going to happen anyway.

There is something wonderfully liberating about realising that not everything requires your intervention.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is simply let things unfold.

Having said all of this, there is most definitely one aspect of life here which is exempt from this entire philosophy:

Driving.

Almost everyone seems to be driving manically, weaving, tailgating and hurtling along at such speed…

…to go somewhere to do something, slowly and calmly.

Apparently, the art of letting go has its limits. 

Photo credit: A view of Islamabad: Ehsan Kiani