#138 – How are your preferences holding you back?

Read online

Do you need to always "like" what you experience to be content?

If so, you may be clinging. And if you are, you're surely missing out on what life has to offer.

The Ghost of Clinging to Useless Possessions (GoCtUP), in charge of your physical and emotional closets, asks you to hold tight to the things that made you happy one time.

Like that second-hand red T-shirt you bought for 100 pesetas [equivalent to $1] at El Rastro [Madrid's traditional flea market] in 1990. Even though it's full of holes and has lost its shape, you don't want to throw it away because. Because what?

Or that morning when you exited the ferryboat in Vila Real de Santo Antonio [a beach town in the south of Portugal] with your parents and sat at a cafe by the seaport, and the pastel de nata [custard pie] was so sweet, warm and crunchy.

Because you're clinging to that memory of carefree happiness, no pastel [pie] can ever compare and you spend all your life fruitlessly chasing that feeling of crisp warmth and sweetness.

You can't think of exploring other towns in the summer, trying other pies, or getting new T-shirts because the GoCtUP has put a lock on your mind.

The result is a narrow, no-surprises life. Rosy and sunny? Maybe. But bland. Flat.

When you restrict your experiences to only the things you "like," you leave out most opportunities to experience life as it is.

But only by experiencing life as it is, not as you want it to be, can you grow and evolve.

What old stuff will you let go of so you have room to grow with new experiences?

Love,

Carolina