This morning I was on a Zoom call with some of my fellow coaches. We got talking about what it really means to let go, and it got me thinking at a deeper level than I expected for a Tuesday morning.
Knowing that you know nothing
There's a line usually credited to Socrates: "The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." It's really a paraphrase of something Plato wrote about him, but the idea has lasted a couple of thousand years for a reason.
We live in a time when collecting information is easy, and it's easy to mistake knowing lots of things for being wise. Those words are a humbling reminder. Admitting what you don't know is a strength. It's the first step towards actually understanding something.
Kill the person you were born to be
Maybe it was watching Elton John play Glastonbury this weekend, but I couldn't stop thinking about a line from Rocketman, the film about his life. A fellow musician tells the young Reggie Dwight:
"You've got to kill the person you were born to be in order to become the person you want to be."
It's a striking line. For me it's about growth. Some of the old you has to go to make room for the new you.
Reggie Dwight had to step aside for Elton John to exist. Most of us won't change our names. But we all have versions of ourselves we've outgrown. The old habits. The old opinions we keep defending out of loyalty. The old story about what someone like us can do.
Letting go takes courage
Put Socrates and Rocketman side by side and they're saying something similar. Let go of your old self, your assumptions, and even the comfort of knowing, and you make room to become the person you're trying to be.
That's wisdom to me. Understanding that you need to keep growing. Accepting the value of humility. And finding the courage to change.
I know a bit about this. I've let go of more than one old version of myself over the years, and the letting go was usually harder than what came after it. I wrote about the slow, uncomfortable bit of change in what a skydive taught me about the slow bit.
Holding on and letting go
There's another line I love, usually credited to the novelist Hermann Hesse, though nobody seems to have found it in his books:
"Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go."
We tend to admire people who hang on. Who grit their teeth and push through. And sometimes that's exactly right. But sometimes the strongest thing you can do is open your hand.
So is there an old idea you're holding on to because it's comfortable, more than because it's still true?
And if you need a soundtrack while you think about it, you know whose music I'd recommend.
