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Closing Cycles
by Paulo Coelho
One always has to know when a stage comes to
an end. If we insist on staying longer than the
necessary time, we lose the happiness and the
meaning of the other stages we have to go
through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending
chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters
is to leave in the past the moments of life that have
finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship
come to an end? Did you leave your parents'
house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting
friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend
a long time wondering why this has happened.
You can tell yourself you won't take another step
until you find out why certain things that were so
important and so solid in your life have turned into
dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be
awfully stressing for everyone involved: your
parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your
children, your sister, everyone will be finishing
chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with
life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a
standstill.
None of us can be in the present and the past at
the same time, not even when we try to understand
the things that happen to us. What has passed will
not return: we cannot forever be children, late
adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards
our parents, lovers who day and night relive an
affair with someone who has gone away and has
not the least intention of coming back. Things
pass, and the best we can do is to let them really
go away.
That is why it is so important (however painful it
may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of
things away to orphanages, sell or donate the
books you have at home. Everything in this visible
world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of
what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of
certain memories also means making some room
for other memories to take their place. Let things
go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.
Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so
sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do
not expect anything in return, do not expect your
efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be
discovered, your love to be understood. Stop
turning on your emotional television to watch the
same program over and over again, the one that
shows how much you suffered from a certain loss:
that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting
love relationships that are broken off, work that is
promised but there is no starting date, decisions
that are always put off waiting for the "ideal
moment." Before a new chapter is begun, the old
one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has
passed will never come back. Remember that
there was a time when you could live without that
thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a
habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it
may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity
or arrogance, but simply because that no longer
fits your life. Shut the door, change the record,
clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being
who you were, and change into who you are. |
| | Posted 8/17/2005 12:13 AM - 1 View - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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