What Could You Let Go Of, for the Sake of Harmony?

(An Essay based on my upcoming memoir “About Life Choices and Potholes”)

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If you had asked me five years ago what I couldn’t live without, I would’ve given you a confident (if slightly defensive) list: my meticulously color-coded planner, my rituals, my Sunday evenings alone, my expectations of how people should behave, and—my personal favorite—my need to be understood.

But life, as it often does, handed me a pothole or ten.

And somewhere between losing what I thought was a dream job, navigating heartbreaks I didn’t even see coming, and being served humble pie by the universe on a silver platter of silence, I realized that holding on wasn’t helping. Harmony—whether in relationships, work, or my own inner world—wasn’t showing up until I started letting go.

Letting go wasn’t poetic at first. It was clumsy. Sometimes loud. Often tear-streaked. I let go of being right in arguments that didn’t need a winner. I let go of trying to edit other people’s lives like a control freak with a red pen. I let go of the timeline I had tattooed on my soul—when I should’ve been successful, married, healed, perfect.

And you know what slipped in, in place of all that clenched energy?

Grace.
Ease.
Moments of laughter during chaos.
The ability to hear someone without the itch to interrupt.
A softness I didn’t know I had room for.

Harmony doesn’t arrive with a ribbon. It comes in small decisions: Do I send that biting text or let it go? Do I hold that grudge or open my heart just a little bit wider? Do I keep that version of myself I outgrew because it feels safe, or do I step into the unknown?

In writing my memoir About Life Choices and Potholes, I came face-to-face with the many versions of me who were trying so hard to keep it all together. And yet, the real magic came in the chapters where I finally gave myself permission to unravel.

I didn’t just want to write a book. I wanted to hold a mirror. To say to anyone reading: maybe harmony doesn’t come from hustling harder or trying to win every battle. Maybe it comes from releasing your grip—on people, on plans, on pain.

So what could you let go of?

Your turn.