Snip

Many years ago I read a book by Harry Brown entitled How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World. The essence of his advice was that when a relationship is over you should let it go and create room in your life for the next relationship that, for him, was always better.

I don’t believe that the next relationship, or next anything, is always better than the last, though it certainly has that possibility. I do believe that, just as in a tropical rainforest, unless a tall tree falls its tiny successor will never be bathed in full sunlight and grow. In other words, you have to make room for your future.

If your current life and relationships are perfect, please visit another of my blogs and come back to this one if and when you need it. However, if you would like to create space or sunlight for a new experience or person (read about my 80% solution), then perhaps you should “snip” from your life that which is not working for you.

In the 1970s, heyday of “encounter groups,” a Louise joined our ongoing group. She was forty-five years old and had held the same job for twenty-five years. She had hated her job for many years. The rest of us suggested that she simply quit, but for most of us that is much easier said than done.

When you snip a job or person from your life, you are left to encounter the fearsome black hole of the unknown. But that’s just part of the process. You have to take a leap of faith, or you might consider the modified snip.  It’s like back in school when you would swing on the playground rings. You always had to grab the next ring before you let go of the last one. That is where two hands are useful. Louise from the encounter group ultimately resolved her fear by looking for and finding a different and better job before she quit the one she was so unhappy with.

One of my favorite pieces of writing advice is to “Kill your darlings.” A word, a thought, a paragraph, or an entire chapter— each may be beautiful and the best you’ve ever written, but if it doesn’t belong, doesn’t add to the total work, then it must be snipped. This concept has been especially difficult for me to use in my own writing, not because I love all of my darlings, but because I don’t like to waste anything. I have invested time and thought to write each sentence. When I throw anything out I grumble to myself that I have wasted my time. Then I remember that all the time I have spent in the past is really just a “sunk cost” and I snip!

I’d like to end with another story from my encounter group. One fine day a woman in our group named Karen called all four of the men she was dating, and ended each relationship. This was quite a day’s work. The Big Snip. But Karen had decided that she wanted to find a more meaningful and committed relationship and by eliminating the men who did not fit the bill (one of whom was my brother) she certainly created a lot of space to find the one right person.

I encourage you to do the same. If it isn’t working in your life (be it a relationship, a job, or a favorite article of clothing), then snip it out to make room for something which may work, or fit you, better.

Alan