Euphemisms sometimes give words a bad name. The expression “letting go”, which once had the simple meaning of releasing one's grip on something, allowing it to be free of one's control, has now come to be a euphemism for dismissal. Companies “let people go” when previously they would have “given them the sack”, “laid them off”, or simply “booted them out”. But those other expressions are more accurate, since they indicate a positive dismissal. Strictly speaking, “letting go” should only happen when an employee wishes to go, and the company allows him or her to do so. So, in this chapter, we shall consider “letting go” in its original, positive sense: the releasing of our grip to allow what we have previously held to be free from our control.

So far we have explored the process by which our identity is built up through adding points of significance to the personal map that we superimpose on our world. That process is cumulative -from the first simple discoveries of the new-born, to the elaborate network of interests, relationships, values and emotional entanglements that build up as we grow older. But even if we become fearful misers, hoarding everything we can get our hands on, sooner or later we are going to have to face the fact that things will slip from our grasp. In the trajectory from birth to death, life involves as much letting go as picking up.