The Process of Letting Go

What do you think of when someone says letting go, or the process of letting go? For me, this is one of the things in life that is a guaranteed requirement. Life is in a constant state of flux, and with that comes inevitable change. Whether it is a letting go of friends and/or family over the years, due to relocation for any number of reasons, or other things as such as death, change is sure to come, more often that we typically like. Even changes in age require that we must face up to the fact that we must give up certain things such as our sex life or other aspects of our health, perhaps even our independence. Sometimes, financial changes come along and we must let go of the extras that we might have once enjoyed, such as traveling, or eating out at restaurants on a regular basis. Sometimes, we must give up products and services that we once enjoyed, and even those small things can cause us angst and discomfort. As a funny example, it was just this year that they quit putting Sunlight Dish Soap in the famous yellow container that I have used since time immemorial. Although this is no big deal in the grand scheme of things, it did remind me that nothing is forever and it ruined the fun I would have with it as a prop for my humor, when I would occasionally leave it on the counter or in the bedroom as an ornament for my wife to see, this based on a running joke we had about it.

Although I have been aware of the process of letting go for most of my life it was never so “in my face” as it was when my work life came to an end. My work world came crashing down in April of 2019 when I was informed that my services were no longer required. They called it “fired without cause.” Ouch! In 2017, the fellow that had owned the glass door company I was working with sold the business to an investor funded group who was buying up all kinds of businesses in the same field. Their mandate was to offer customers everything they needed to enclose a building, specifically doors. I saw them buy many other businesses once they purchased the glass door company and saw them combine and relocate many of them, with little regard for the hundreds of cast-off employees they left in their wake. For some reason, I didn’t see the writing on the wall, and two years after they had bought us, they fired all the people that worked remotely, including me, and about a year later, they moved the factory I was so familiar with to a different state in the US and fired the rest of the workers.

The stress that came from being fired, even though it was no fault of my own, was quite profound. I had never been let go from anywhere job-wise, in fact I was constantly praised in everything I had done in life to earn a living and the constant barrage of “atta boys,” and the joy of the work, was what fulfilled me and spurred me on to continue in my typical fashion of hard and dedicated work.

It was at this time that my wife, Denise, encouraged me to retire. She said that if we made some changes, we should be able to manage without my income. The biggest change that we needed to make at this time was with our residence. Although we “owned” a townhouse style condo, it was far from being paid off and the mortgage, along with all other costs, such as property tax, condo fees, and so forth was just too much. We decided to sell the condo and rent something else that seemed more affordable. They say that two of the most stressful things in a person’s life are job loss and moving. Here I was dealing with both of them – a double barrelled shot gun, as an analogy. Thank goodness that I had my years of recovery and growth to help me stay sane. Living one day at a time, and thinking back to surviving and even finding things better after most previous changes in life, I was, and continue to manage the ups and downs of the grief it had brought.

The Weight of Life – Clip Art by Don Cheke

Did you ever watch season 5, episode 7 of the TV series called Monk. The episode is called, “Mr. Monk Gets a New Shrink.” When Monk’s psychiatrist, Dr. Kroger says he is retiring, Monk goes through the stages of grief over and over in rapid succession. It was very funny, but accurate, nonetheless. I continue to go through the stages to this day, but not as fast as Mr. Monk, and still sometimes one more than the others. As time has passed since then, I feel like I have survived and that I have, like all other times of change, have come out the other side better for having had the change, even if it had begun with fear and anxiety, due to the unknowns. Although I had no crystal ball to let me know I would survive and things would be fine, the previous positive experiences were not much different than having that crystal ball, to see and remember the most likely outcome would be good, if not even markedly better than expected.

5 Stages of Grief – Stylized Stick Man Characters Designed and Drawn by Don Cheke

One of the other things that I suffered a loss from, when I lost my job, was a sense of financial security, as delusional as “security” generally is. Since 2004, I had been producing and selling TurboCAD tutorials. Although sales were never enough to call it earning a living, it had provided enough of a financial income to make it worth producing them. It was about 2015 when I saw a steady decline in tutorial sales. I attributed that to the continual downward progression of the producers of the program and the addition of many new and cheaper CAD applications in the marketplace. What I had thought might provide a bit of income when I retired looked like it, too, would soon be history.

Beveled Gear – Modeled in TurboCAD & Rendered in KeyShot by Don Cheke

When tutorial sales continued to plummet to almost nothing in 2022, I decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to keep producing and selling them. That being the case, I closed the shopping page on my website and put that chapter of life behind me. It was definitely a sad and somewhat depressing thing to do.

At the end of 2023, I decided that it was time to close my website completely, since it was no longer what it was once intended for. After all, it was a publishing company, for all intents and purposes and I no longer had publications to sell. I took steps at that time to tell my web host that I was not renewing and that I had no intention of keeping the domain name. This change, as you can imagine, also gave me a lot of opportunities to grieve. The job was gone, the hoped-for retirement cash, spending money at least, was gone, and along with it, the endless praise, the “atta-boys” I loved to receive.

Just recently, just to add insult to injury, it was pointed out to me that my previous domain name was picked up by someone else, and if that wasn’t bad enough, it has become a smut site, an escort service. Can you imagine? I spent 24 years offering wholesome help to my tutorial customers and answering thousands of emails through that avenue with the same helping hand, free of charge. Now, if people visit, they will see the trash that it has been replaced by. I tried to find out why this had happened, and the web host said that once you release a domain name, it can take on a new life of its own and there is nothing one can do about it. I had others tell me that low life’s, like those who took my domain name, do so with the hopes of getting visits from those who do not know of the change, with the chance of acquiring customers (fat chance of that I’d say!). Just when I thought I knew all the ways that some “people” take advantage, here comes another. Talk about an opportunity to practice letting go, and stepping away, since nothing can be done about what comes after. As they say, “serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I suppose I could have continued to pay for the domain name, but that costs money, which is not as abundant now that I have retired. As Queen Elsa says in one of my grandchildren’s movies, Frozen, “Let it go!” Yep, it was funny to hear my girls mimic this when they were playing and it is very apropos. 😊

One of the questions that came to mind as I went through these changes was, do I still matter when I am not constantly producing or working? I know in my heart that I do, but the attribution of one’s self-worth to what we do for work is still so strong. I battle with this on and off, even today.

In a similar vein there was a point in time after I stopped working when I participated more in social media. I already had a YouTube channel, where I offered insight into my new tutorials, and later where I offered insights into the world of design and manufacturing. I never allowed comments or ratings, because I had seen just how many trolls are out there ever ready to rain on one’s parade. It’s not that I didn’t expect to get some good comments and even some accolades, but I just didn’t want to open myself up to the trolls. You know what I mean! Of that, I am sure. I then started an Instagram account and a Reddit account. I would post images of all my recent projects on Instagram and I would answer questions in the three or four Reddit sub forums I followed. I found myself continually checking to see if anyone gave me positive comments and/or likes. I started to feel like this was the gauge that would tell me whether or not I still mattered. It wasn’t too long before I realized I was living with this need for approval from others to tell me whether or not I was valued. It was obviously an attempt to replace or reacquire the “atta-boys” I always got from my co-workers and customers. Once I realized that this was the case, I closed my Instagram and Reddit accounts. I know I could have just readjusted my thinking and maintained the accounts, but I decided the closure was better, since I spent too much time going there and never came away with any sense of fulfillment, based on other’s comments or likes, or better yet, the lack of those things. To be honest, I haven’t missed it at all, although I find that it is somewhat hard not to have something to check all through the day.

These days, I try to live with the obscurity that has become my life in the world out there. I try to spend time doing other things, like assembling jigsaw puzzles, as I mentioned in my last blog post. I try to spend more time with my grandchildren and I try to spend less time at the computer, although I still love how that provides the tools for much of my creative nature. Just the other day, my daughter said that when I die, she would put all my artwork in a gallery or a museum and then I would get the fame I always should have gotten. I said, “Thanks my love, but I think your papa was meant to live in obscurity.” I know that is true, and is probably the better way to live, thus avoiding all the pitfalls that come with fame. As I learned long ago, and wrote in one of my earlier books, “The spiritual traveler is not afraid to be unknown.”

To wrap up, let me just say that letting go is most certainly a process. It is definitely something that takes time, and something that a person may not be fully able to do. In this way, it is like grieving, One will go through the stages over and over, sometimes not in order, sometimes spending more time with one aspect than with the others. Hopefully, like grieving, one will adapt to letting go to an extent where it becomes less of an issue and something one can look back on as a teaching moment. That is called growth.

Junked Diesel Engine

Donald B. Cheke – April 1, 2024