Letting Go of the Unnecessary

Oftentimes, we can handle all the things happening around us. But when stressful moments come, the mess around us can accumulate over time. We no longer have the chance to take control of it. Suddenly, unfinished tasks in our calendar start to pile up, our desks become a mountain of stuff, and all our thoughts just become a chaotic mess. When this happens, our initial reaction is to ignore the things we haven't done, the things we haven't clean up and we even find it hard to focus on the tasks ahead. As a result, the mountain of mess becomes bigger. Despite that we are aware of it, we still chose to ignore it and continue on our day.

The stress of being overwhelmed by all of those things causes us to do more unnecessary activities. In my personal experience, what I usually do when I'm stressed out is play video games. For hours on end, I immerse myself playing the game, in which during those times, I no longer think about what is happening in my life. I am simply there enjoying the game. For other people, it could be binge-watching their favorite series, endlessly scrolling through social media, or just wasting their time on nonsensical stuff not related to what they are supposed to do. Those things seem good and pleasurable at the moment, yet unknowingly, their effects accrue over time. Wasting three hours a day on social media seems okay, but if you do that for a year, that’s more than a thousand hours.

As they say, our life is a journey. We have a long road ahead of us. Everywhere we go, we pick up things, habits, language, and even experiences from people, which then becomes a part of us and our journey. Therefore, over time, unnecessary stuff starts to accumulate. The journey now becomes harder until we can no longer bear it. We keep picking up things thinking it would help us but ends up weighing us down. All of those things have become unnecessary baggage we have to carry along the journey. The more we embrace and carry those unnecessary things, the harder it is for us to let go and the harder it is for us to move forward to our destination. Even so, it slows us down, unless we are willing to let go of them.

Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, Hebrews 12:1

As the writer of Hebrews eloquently puts it, "lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us". There are two things I would like to point out in this passage. First are the weight and sin. We can ask ourselves: what are the things in our lives that are weighing us down? We might think that the weight can be bearable as long as we can endure but truth is, holding a grip on that weight for a long time is no longer bearable. It is like holding a glass of water. At first, we think it is easy, but try holding it for hours and even days, it becomes painful already and burdening. The second one is the phrase "easily ensnares us". This stuff may sometimes be beyond us but they easily trap us and even imprison us as we allow them in our lives.

With all these, how then can we identify the things that are slowing and weighing us down? The simplest way I can suggest is to determine where we are going. When our destination becomes clear, it becomes easy for us to pay the cost of letting go of the unnecessary things in replace of the rewards that await us. As we know, there is always a great prize at every end of the race. Therefore, we need to get rid of and let go of those unnecessary and weighty baggage and start focusing on the things that matter most. When we do, mountains of mess won't pile up and we can run the race swiftly, not without hardships of course since there will still be hardships and obstacles. Yet this time, we can endure finishing because we know that nothing is weighing us down.