When asked, “How are you?” a friend of mine often replies, “I’m hanging in there.”

I like to joke with him about his potential to moonlight as an acrobat.

* * *

Our desire to “hang in there” comes from the right place. It’s born of grit, determination, and persistence. But it’s not necessarily a sustainable activity.

There are situations where a tighter grip doesn’t help. Times when we’re challenged not to hang on, but to let go. To release. To allow.

And the curious thing about it is that we never know for sure what will happen until we actually let go. Until we make that shift, we can only imagine.

The words of Chögyam Trungpa come to mind: “The bad news is you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there’s no ground.”

It takes courage to hang on. But letting go is courageous too. Here’s to doing it with purpose and beauty.