Two Things We Need To Understand About Detachment

L et’s face it. The earliest we understood that we will not always be in control, the better. That’s why detachment is important. Look at it this way: We are normally told that no man is an island. It’s true. In other words, we depend on each other. At some level, we even depend on the Divine.

Need Each Other

We cannot do life alone and autonomously. In every endeavor we have, there will be input needed from someone else or from something else or even from God. Physics tells us that for every action, there is an equal but opposite reaction. Well, is it always the same with relationships, whether business, family or otherwise?

Not necessarily. Detachment helps us to acknowledge several things about life. First, we acknowledge that timing is not in our hands. Second we realize that the answer itself is not entirely in our hands even after we have done our part.

Detachment

This means that at some point in time, we might not be totally in control of what is happening or in control of all the outcomes we want. That’s where detachment comes in. However, for detachment to work properly, one must make sure that you have done your part.

• You do your part to conceive and you detach yourself. Let the baby grow and let nature take its course. You don’t worry about what you cannot control.
• You do your part to plant seeds and detach yourself. There is a process of germination of which you are not in control. Otherwise, you will spend sleepless nights wondering if the seeds will grow
• You do your part and build your business. You identify a niche, create solutions and products for their problems, and let them know about it. Then you practice detachment. It is not in your control what they do to get your services, but you have done your part.
• You do your part to raise your child in the best possible way. Then you detach yourself from the process as they become adults. You know that you did equip them and now it is no longer in your control.

Two Things About Detachment

In our existence on earth, there has to be a general understanding of things. We have to understand that our optimal existence is for productivity. There is no higher reason for your existence other than that, and I am willing to be persuaded otherwise. This is how we start to put detachment into perspective.

1. About Control

Have you ever seen a control freak? They are a danger not only to themselves, but also to the people around them. Woe to us if the control freak is our manager. They want to be everywhere all the time and make sure that everything is done as they would do it!

I have to say that having control is a very good thing. In fact, we all ought to have control at some level. However, there is no one who has ultimate control in life. Our control in life is about ourselves and that’s the circumference it covers.

It covers the decisions we make, the desires we have, the actions we take and the way we respond to things in life. However, we are not in the nucleus of other people’s lives and events, thoughts and desires to exercise control over them. That’s a cult.

Even God Himself practices detachment so much so that he has given people control over their own lives. People can cuss God, use his name in vain, declare that he exists not and so on. And that’s why the world is how it is. God is detached from it but it doesn’t mean he has abandoned his responsibilities.

For control to work in total, one has to be aware of diversity, uniqueness and differences in people. We have different motives, different purposes, different motivations and different time lines. The list of our differences is endless. If you seek to have control over all this, you will fail massively. That’s why we have to practice detachment and let diversity take its route.

Remember:

2. It is About Trust

To be honest, those who cannot trust have not learnt to practice detachment. Trust is all about detachment. Trust is putting your ‘control’ over something else or on someone else for them to do what you want done in the first place. It is to have confidence that they will come through.

How in the world would we live and be successful without trust? We have built amazing technology in medicine but without trust, no patient will be willing to go under the knife to remove a tumor, for instance.

Trust and Detachment

Of course, over a period of time, trust will be tested over and over until it is trusted well enough to deliver. Even then, we are still aware that someone we trust can spring a surprise. That’s why we have to keep practicing detachment. To be in detachment means you are learning to trust the process, and the people involved in the process.

You pay for your security and get detached from the process of being secure. Instead of spending all night as a lookout, you detach yourself from the process and trust the security company to do what you want done so that you can concentrate on other important things at night.

We learn to move on in life and be productive when we learn to be detached. We shall look at some five advantages of being detached (already inferred here) in the next article.