The Power of Letting Go

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah Ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, “Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it.” “If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty,” replied Benaiah, “I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?” “It has magic powers,” answered the king. “If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy.” Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility. Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of the poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day’s wares on a shabby carpet. “Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?” asked Benaiah. He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile. That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity. “Well, my friend,” said Solomon, “have you found what I sent you after?” All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled. To everyone’s surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, “Here it is, your majesty!” As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: gimel, zayin, yud, which began the words “Gam zeh ya’avor” — “This too shall pass.” At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust.

I said once before that if we could master one skill that would catapult our ability to be massively successful it would be detachment from outcomes. If we start to realize that there is a an impermanence to everything in our life,  then the events that occur in our live will cease to have power over us. It’s also been said over and over that what we resist persists.  When I was in my early 20’s, I took a job at a startup that really sucked the life out of me. One of the byproducts of taking that job was that my health started to deteriorate. Within 3 months of starting I found myself with a severe set of stomach problems.  So, I decided to go see a doctor. The first doctor gave me some medicine which didn’t work and eventually referred me to a specialist. When I went to the specialist he told me “You have IBS.” For the next 2 years I obsessed over finding a cure for my stomach problems. I ordered nutritional supplements, herbal teas, and even saw a hypnotherapist.  After 2 years of fighting really hard to beat IBS, I decided to give up. I decided to accept my condition.

What happened over the next year or so was quite interesting. The conditioned subsided significantly. I can’t honestly think of the last time I looked for a cure, and I’ve decided to accept the situation. While I still have the condition, it ceased to have power over me, the way it did during the period in which I constantly searched for the cure.

When you fight the thing that you don’t want in your life, you give it power. Not only do you give it power, you create more of it. Your focus is entirely on the thing you don’t want. Look at the pattern below:

Stomach Problems –>Doctor’s Visit–> Visit to a specialist for stomach problems==> Diagnosed with a condition which could be more or less just called stomach problems==> the search for a cure for stomach problems==> herbal products for stomach problems==> visit to a hypnotherapist for stomach problems

After seeing that pattern it should come as no surprise that I kept creating the thing I wanted to get rid of in my life. It was all I was focusing on. I was activating the Law of Attraction long before I knew of its existence.  The reason I included the story about King Solomon and the ring is because it reminds us to remember that even the worst of situations we might find ourselves in will eventually pass.  If we keep a reminder of this somewhere easy to see, it can allow us to have a great deal of peace in our lives.

Tags: law of attraction, detachment, king solomon, this too shall pass

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