Why hold on? Let go!

In a Psychology class, Aditi was called up to the dais and asked to sit on the lecturer's chair. The rest of the class was then asked to say some good things about her one after the other. The first one said,"Oh..you have such a beautiful hair". The next one said," Hey...your smile is so sweet".Whenever a student would praise her, the glow over her face would keep on increasing like the waxing phase of the moon. This continued till the last student. She was now as bright with happiness as the Full moon.

After everybody finished praising her, it was now the lecturer's turn. He said," It's ok that everybody has praised you. But let me tell you frankly. Those pimples on your face look so dirty! And what kind of that dress have you worn??? It's looking horrible! Disgusting!" The smile on Aditi's face vanished at once and she became depressed and dull like a black hole. The lecturer then asked her to go back and take her seat. He observed her for the rest of the lecture. She was lost in some thoughts and was as dull as never before.

The question now is, while so many people praised her, why did she cling on to the last negative comment that she got? Why do we forget the happy events so soon and keep the sad events in focus? Why don't we LET GO?

Now letting go here, doesn't mean that we start pretending that the event has never occurred. Each event in our life leaves it's impact on us which we cannot deny. Every moment is an experience no matter whether it is a sad or a happy one. And we have to look at the past in order to learn from it, to bring greater understanding, compassion, and perspective to it. Letting go doesn't mean we forget the event as a whole. It just implies that we should let go of the negative memories linked to it, and at the same time, clinging on to what we learnt from that and what had brought a smile on our faces. And this is possible only through consistent practice. We should train our memory in such a way that it retains the good experiences in mind and deletes the bad ones which make us sad. After all, one gets good only at what one practices. If we practice holding on to negative thoughts, we will get very good at dwelling on what has hurt us in the past...which will bring nothing but pain. On the other hand, if we practice letting go, we'll be forever at peace, and we can move forward in life with full of positivity.

"Dwelling on any unhappy moment in life, is like channel surfing through a thousand possible TV shows, selecting and watching the one that troubles you the most, and then blaming the TV set for the pain that you are feeling!"

Life is tooooooooo short to hold on to negative feelings and negative pasts. Then why hold on? LET GO AND SET URSELF FREE !