Spirituality — September 12 Writing Prompt

Fear, Loss, and Detachment

What are you the most scared of losing?

Photo by Egor Myznik on Unsplash

I don’t post on the internet my deepest, darkest fears. And other than the idea of crawling around in a dark cave full of scorpions and spiders, I’m not sure I have many fears these days. Fortunately, that one is fairly easy to avoid!

So, I won’t answer the question, “What are you the most scared of losing, and what would you truly lose if you lost it?” My family is under strict orders to outlive me, though the pain of “losing” loved ones is also a testament to how well we love and are loved. We will “lose” each other one of these days.

But I will say this: The older I get, the more conscious I become of the fact that none of us will live forever. We leave this world as alone and empty-handed as we come into it. We will “lose” everything, eventually.

The Buddhist concept of “detachment” once sounded cold and unfeeling — how could one “detach” from people and things if they loved them? Detachment, now, makes perfect sense. It has to do with enjoying the here and now, exactly as it is, without attaching expectations to it.

We talk about parents “letting go,” and this is exactly what’s meant: Once we trust that we have done our jobs well…