Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die
It takes a lot to change a man
Hell, it takes a lot to try
Maybe it’s time to let the old ways die.
–Lyrics by Bradley Cooper from A Star is Born soundtrack
There is some truth to the idea that over the course of a lifetime, we are continuously living and dying in small and large ways. I don’t just mean obvious losses like breakups, the death of loved ones, losing jobs, moving homes, stuff like that. I’m also talking about well-practiced habits, patterns, thoughts and behaviors we hold onto vociferously, sometimes with heels dug in so deeply that we are an immovable force of protest.
Humans are generally exceedingly reluctant to let the old ways die even when they no longer serve us well. Even when they actually hurt or harm us.
We grasp. We cling. We resist change to protect ourselves from grieving the loss of what we have let go.
Danaan Perry writes of this letting go in “The Parable of the Trapeze:”
“Sometimes I feel that my life is a series of trapeze swings. I’m either hanging on to a trapeze bar swinging along or, for a few moments in my life, I’m hurtling across space in between trapeze bars. Most of the time, I spend my life hanging for dear life to my trapeze-bar-of-the-moment.”
Sometimes letting go is literally a leap of faith. It helps to have others to cheer us on, or to hold us as we grieve, in order to move forward as we let go. Falling free, not free falling.