Letting Go

To me it is a biggy.  They say something like, “if you love someone let them go, if they return, they are yours, and if not, it was never meant to be.”  I do hold to the gist of that.
Any task I am involved in I need to be willing to let go.  It does not mean I walk away on a whim.  It is just that I am willing to let someone else do it at the right time.
I am reminded of a song I love that says “this skin and bones is a rental…”  I must confess the reality of that has become more real the older I have gotten.  I like to think I am irreplaceable.  That the place will come to a screaming halt if I am not there.
Finishing up at work reinforced to me that that was not so. I need not have concerned myself about where they were going to find the 14 people to replace me.  That was delusional.  The day after I finished up someone else did the job.  Eventually it will be like “Peter who?”
I’m pretty sure I have mentioned it before, but it is something that lives with me.  In an episode of the Simpsons Homer had his arm stuck in the exit slot of a vending machine.  The can he was expecting had not emerged.  People did everything to assist him to no avail.  Eventually those responsible for the machine dismantled it completely.  It was found that the reason Homer could not remove his hand was it was wrapped around the can.  If he had let it go his hand could have come straight out.
In the same way I reckon I need to be willing to let go.  I may have really enjoyed a role and got off on it, but there will come a time when I need to let go and let someone else do it.  I get tempted to think no one else could do it as good as me, but that is a lie.  The fact is, when given the opportunity others do it just as well if not better.
It is inevitable.  I need to just try doing a role when I’m dead.
For me what matters is that even when I enjoy the role it is a “hands off” affair.  After all anything can happen at any time.  That is a worst-case scenario, but there is freedom in hands off.
I am all for doing a job well, but it seems to me the best I can achieve is doing that and making it easier for the next person.  I want what I build to get better, but it is guaranteed I won’t live forever in my current form.  Best I build well so the next person has something solid to work with.
So for me so much of what I do is about letting go.  Doing what I do well, enjoying the process but realizing “this skin and bones is a rental,” and my role at best is making the tapestry of human life better.