As the dance song by Gala goes, in the age of digitization where social media is king, one may ponder on whether the arousal of desire is beneficial or not.

For those who grew up in the 80s like me, they’ll recognize the song from the 90s straightaway. I used to love the song without even understanding its meaning ! ^^ As a kid, I just loved the chorus and its melody. Going down memory lane, it’s important to have a look at the lyrics.

Want more and more
People just want more and more
Freedom and love, what he’s looking for…

Freed from desire, mind and senses purified…

I personally love this acoustic version of “Freed from desire”. You will find it right below:

As the songs we tend to always want more and more. Flooded with messages arousing desires in people in social media, we often find ourselves trapped by a need to learn a new skill, to get more or think of new ways about our life, due to what we see on a daily basis in posts.

How to increase your revenue ?

How to get the best landing page to generate more leads ?

7 ways to lost weight in our hassle-free method !

10 reasons why you should update your skills now !

Such is the content we happen to read, willy nilly.

There is no denying we all fall prey to that. I am not writing a post here to show off my skills claiming I have never followed or believed this. That would be lying. Not only did I happen to click on such clickbaits many a time, but I also was looking for something more on occasions. Most importantly, beyond the mere fact of clicking, the underlying question that remains is “why click” ?

See, life is a journey and we learn new things on a daily basis. We always acquire new knowledge, get new experiences, meet new and fantastic people. That also means we lose touch with some old friends, forget what we learnt and jettisoned projects that were very important to us in the past, but which are no longer relevant as days go by.

The older I get, the more I realise the importance of letting go. Nothing new can add to what I have if I don’t find enough space in my current life to let new things in. Space is of primary importance, whether we talk about physical space or mental space. Before focusing on evolving too fast, I need to make room to novelty. I can only achieve that by getting rid of the useless part of me. If my mental drawers are full, there’s no way I will be able to fill it with new knowledge or ways of seeing.

Stacking up will be of no use here.

When I let go, I invest in myself.

I just remove cobwebs and old patterns. I clean myself and get ready for what’s new and coming.

As we are bombarded by news or posts suggesting what we should do to be better, I want to remind you to be yourself. The world loves you the way you are and needs you the way you are.

Sometimes, success doesn’t depend on whether you improve or not. Sometimes things are just supposed to happen. Overall, it’s all for the better. That said, it’s too complex a topic for us to know. Sometimes, we shouldn’t bother and not venture to bite more than we can chew.

To me, that’s what Buddhists, Taoists, Christians or any religious people say when they mean “let go”.

Have faith in what’s coming, even though you’ve been through a tough time. Dust yourself off, breathe deeply and welcome the present – however fast it may be changing for you.

There might not be much you could do about it anyway… If you know Toshitsugu Takamatsu*, the great Sensei from Bujinkan, on mentioning the 养生四柱 – 4 pillars to cultivate life – he stated that :

We should avoid desires to protect our heart. Mental problems generally appear under the guise of desires: “I want this or that” or “I want to be rich and be part of the high society”. Efforts should be made to avoid this sort of desires and rather cultivate a good heart and a good mind.

Toshitsugu Takamatsu*

I hadn’t been writing for some time and thought such a post might be a nice way of reminding us – because I also need it 😉 – that life is not forever and time is of the essence.

Let’s savour it and enjoy being fully in it. We don’t have to strive to become anything.

We ARE becoming already, every day.

So take time to get to know who you are, how your body supports you every day, how your brain gives your fresh new ideas when you get up, what those muscles and those nerves are that make it possible for you to move your hands as you stroll down reading my post. Just observe…

All that happens within or without you is truly incredible in itself. Losing sight of the daily magic occuring before our very eyes is a bit of a pity. Observing ourselves moving as we move through the current of life and letting go may also bring a sense of wholeness.

So, stop comparing yourself to others.

Protect your heart by letting things go and just be you. You may not fully know it yet, but you are essential to the world and it needs you this way.

As you will probably notice if you listen to that acoustic version of Freed from desire – which is truly soothing -, silence – which is space in the musical sense – also enables a song to resonate more deeply.

Resonate at your own frequency my friend, resonate… 😉

* Toshitsugu Takamatsu (高松 寿嗣, Takamatsu Toshitsugu, 10 March 1889 – 2 April 1972) was a Japanese martial artist and teacher of Bujinkan founder Masaaki Hatsumi. He has been called “The Last Shinobi” by Bujinkan instructor^[1] Wolfgang Ettig. For more information, please do some research on the Bujinkan ninjutsu.