How scared am I to lose something? I read that humans feel more strongly about loss than they do about gain. We’re pessimistic by nature. Perhaps our optimism is something to be nurtured.
I know right now that I might be losing something. Something very dear to me. I don’t know to what extent I’ll lose it, and that’s what bugs me even more. Uncertainty and loss are the bane of our brief lives. But it’s delusional to think that I could never lose. It’s delusional to think that everything could be certain. But delusions are still painful.
We fight tooth and nail when we have to give up something we’ve been given. Loss can be too painful to bear. I’ll hide the pain of loss by pretending that I don’t care about it, so losing it means nothing to me, even though deep down it meant a lot, and I would have given it my all to succeed. But to lose would be too painful. Can I continue to be kind in the face of pain and loss?
Can I bring myself to be limitless in my generosity? If I lose something, that means it has been given away. Energy doesn’t disappear, it merely changes form. Can I think of loss as a gift to the universe? A loved one passes, a favourite sweater finally gets too many holes, it is all given back to the universe.
You drop a $50 bill, someone else picks it up.
When I lose something to someone, I can learn to appreciate that other person. Appreciating a concept containing the existence of everything seems a bit more challenging. When something is lost/given to the universe, can I appreciate the universe?
I like to think that the gifts I receive have some meaning behind them. I like to think that there was a rationale behind why I was given it. To think that everything was random, might be unbearable. It would be preferable to think I deserved those gifts. And to deserve my losses. But I will gain and lose things regardless of my choices. One day, I will lose my body. One day, I will lose my mind. It seems best to acknowledge the inevitability of loss, and simply carry on.
Share your word with me below.
Hey Charles,
I was attracted to the title when I visited your website just now. You posed some interesting questions about loss. But what made me continue to read was that I have a different perspective from the very beginning: I don’t think we feel more about loss than gain because we are pessimistic by nature. On the contrary, we might be optimistic or take it for granted in the first place, that’s why we feel strongly about it when we lose something.
Gain and loss always come together. When we lose something, we feel something strong inside, I believe it would be beneficial to also look inward to find the gain rather than looking outward to whom we have lost something. Our own psychology does trick our very selves. You wrote this in 2017, I’m sure your reflection has gone a long way since then! Cheers, my best break teacher!