Dealing with Feelings of Loss when we Let Go

Following @Carolkmail's comment on yesterday's post [about remembering and letting go to move on], let us take sometime to look at loss or feelings of it.

In his book Drained: Stories of People Who Wanted More, Johann Christoph Arnold quotes George McDonald,

a man is in bondage to whatever he cannot part with that is less than himself.

In another chapter, aptly titled 'Let Go', he outlines the need to only bite that which we can chew. In Thomas Merton's words,

To surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence.

In September 2010, I painfully watched as my dog succumbed to poisoning. My brother and I both knew it was already a good number of minutes after it had swallowed the poison, there was little we could do to help. What really irked me at the time was knowing that I could in no way help it.

When we deliberately let go of persons, things, situations and other matters, the situation is slightly different. I however contend that our resolve to move on should make the juice of progress, no matter how tiny its drops, totally worth the while.

Previously on The Walkabout, we had a post about Paulo Coelho's The Zahir: A Novel of Obsession (P.S.). The following underscores the need to let certain things go in life, simply because by closing a chapter in a story, it then becomes possible to move on to the next one...

...there are always some stories that are 'interrupted,' and they are the stories that remain nearest to the surface and so still occupy the present; only when we close that story or chapter can we begin the next one...

That is why it is so important to let certain things go. To release them. To cut loose.

People need to understand that no one is playing with marked cards; sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.

Don't expect to get anything back, don't expect recognition for your efforts, don't expect your genius to be discovered or your love to be understood. Complete the circle. Not out of pride, inability, or arrogance, but simply because whatever it is no longer fits in your life.

Close the door, change the record, clean the house, get rid of the dust. Stop being who you were and become who you are.

What are your thoughts on letting go, given its attendant issues?