Checkmate

Travel light. The two words I can absolutely never abide by, not if my life depended on it. To elaborate, I had to make a one day trip out of the city and I had on me all of two (very well stuffed) bags (and the nagging feeling that I was leaving something behind).
Just so I don’t give you the wrong impression, I’m not a fashionista, a fashion victim or a Carrie Bradshaw in the making. No, far from it. Which is what got me wondering about the cause of my leave-nothing-behind affliction, and my investigation led me to another two words: What If.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the impact of those seemingly innocuous words is beyond just travel bags. I also recognize that it isn’t just me who is subconsciously sorting through the millions of permutations and combinations of potential moves on the chess board of life.
I like making the comparison to a chess match, because of it's uncanny resemblance: the inter-dependency of moves, the endless strategic planning, the ability to only influence and not control what happens around us, the not-immediately-apparent purpose of an event, the little sacrifices along the way that have huge returns, but most of all the fact that try as you may, there are times you just can't predict how the guy across the table is going to move his pieces.

Like in a match, for every situation we are in, a lot of us are mentally taking every route from the fork in the road and deciding what we’ll do when we see that next roadblock there.
Now this is a good thing, being proactive, having a Plan B in place, being prepared for what might come your way, but most of us (though I have certainty only one individual so far :D) don’t realize is that like in the battle of two minds, you can’t cater to every eventuality, you can’t anticipate everything that’ll be thrown your way. You have to give some credit to the big guys up there, you can’t expect to keep second guessing them. I mean, there has to be some reason you’re down here and not rolling the dice (too many game metaphors!) up there with them!

Having highlighted the similarity, what most of us miss out on is that there is one way in which this isn’t like your regular chess match: here everyone’s playing for the same side, yours.
So what you might see as an offensive move from the opposing (for want of a better word) team that causes you to move out of your comfort spot, may very well be exactly where you needed to go to kick that Nasty Knight of the board.

So, I’m coming to learn, sometimes you just have to let go of the controls, because even if you don’t, autopilot’s going to kick in, so you can either fight it and struggle trying to win back the controls, or you can sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.
Easier said than done, I agree, like anything worth doing. But in my experience, the key is to take that first step: start by letting go of that one niggling problem you just can't do anything about. As I ponder on the when parameter of the Let Go philosophy, I'm presented with the impractical simplicity of the phrase when you've done enough. That, I'm afraid you'll have to identify for yourself. (Hey, if I were that smart, you'd be paying to read this! :P)
Anyway, gotta run, there is a certain co-pilot I need to try and steal the controls from! :D