“The real measure of your wealth is how much you’d be worth if you lost all your money.”—Anonymous
Detachment has been an underlying theme of my year. I’ve had challenges with emotional attachment to my work and this has created great opportunities to practice involved detachment. But before discussing detachment, let’s review what emotional attachment is.
WHAT IS EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT?
Emotional attachment is the strong emotional association between your identity and the object of your attachment. This means that the line between who you are and what another person or thing is has been blurred, often leading to disastrous results.
Many relationships are destroyed when emotional attachment becomes too heavy. One party expects something from their partner, and their mood is greatly affected by whether or not they receive what they expect to receive. Lost in their emotions, they forget that a relationship still involves two people, with two different sets of desires, beliefs, and expectations.
Another dangerous form of emotional attachment is to work. Entrepreneurs and other creators are the biggest victims here, mainly because their work is their “baby”: some expression of their passion, love, and creativity. (Employees don’t worry about this too much. Their attachment is often to the security a job brings, or to the paycheck and how that affects their lifestyle.)
When a person becomes too attached to their business or career, any negativity experienced can have drastic affects on their mood or life outlook. Some years ago, a successful BILLIONAIRE threw himself under a train because he lost half of his net worth ($500 million) in a bad investment. This guy still had $500 million left in the bank, but the loss of half his business probably felt as bad as losing a child, or 500 million of them.
(Though unrelated to work, an Arsenal football club fan hung himself after his team lost to Manchester United in the Champions League the other night. A difference of two goals cost him his life. This is where emotional attachment goes wrong, terribly wrong.)
HOW HAVING A “ME” PURPOSE HELPS
So we know what emotional attachment is and how it can ruin a person, so let’s look at how to alleviate this.
Have. A. Purpose.
Having a clear vision of what you want is invaluable. But it’s not enough. Often our “want” is something external: I want a new job, I want $500 million, I want to date a model, I want to be President of the United States, etc etc. All these wants are fine, but they still sit just outside of what you can achieve on your own. They’re dependent on the external, and that’s just not good enough.
We should strive to have a “me” purpose. A purpose that focuses on you and one that can be achieved by you alone. I imagine this will be something related to cultivating a virtue or strengthening one’s character.
My “me” purpose is self mastery. Beyond my ambitious desires to become a billionaire, or produce an Oscar-winning film, or meditate in outer space, or win an Olympic gold medal…my underlying mission is to be a self-mastered, normally-functioning human being. I’m amused at how both simple and difficult this goal is to achieve, but it’s something that I work on regardless of my relationship status, financial situation, or level of personal freedom.
(Nelson Mandela and Victor Frankl are two men with strong “me” purposes that went way beyond their unfortunate external situations. To be able to lead a nation after being wrongly imprisoned for 27 years, and helping others find meaning in Life despite experiencing the atrocities of the Holocaust, are great indicators of our ability to use the strength of our will to achieve, regardless of circumstance.)
Having a purpose beyond the material frees you from the emotional attachment to such things. You could lose your job, your house could burn down, your lover could leave you and you would still be ok. You didn’t place all your eggs into any of these baskets, so when the situation changed, you still have your eggs. (And you can still make tons of omelets!)
WORKING WITH INVOLVED DETACHMENT
Deepak Chopra coined the phrase “involved detachment” in his book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. (If you haven’t read this book, I highly recommend it! Plus, it’s only like 100 pages long. Sweet deal.)
Involved detachment is about working passionately without attachment to the results of your work. It involves knowing that when you put in 150%, you need not worry about what you’ll get in return. Your reciprocal abundance will always be to the same degree and often greater than what you put in. Know this. Chill out.
We often get stressed thinking about what will happen after we do such and such. What will person Z think if I do Y? How do I know that if I do A, B will happen? (You don’t know. Do it anyway.)
All you have is control over your own actions, so to worry about what will happen as a result of your actions is foolish. You can’t fight the Universe and win. Sorry bub. Not even if you’re He-Man or any of his Masters of the Universe.
WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?
This is the part where you’re mostly finished nodding your head (mostly), and you’re ready to put these ideas into action.
So what’s next?
Get out a piece of paper and write down all the areas in your Life where you feel the most attachment. Think about the things and people in your Life that would destroy you if you lost them. Realize that you love these things, but none of them are deciders of your happiness or success. Throw the list away.
Now write another note. (It’s not Earth Day is it?) On this note, think about a virtue that would completely change your Life if it became a part of your character. Something that in the midst of all “terrible” things, you would find solace in. (Could I recommend one? Courage –“The ladder on which all other virtues mount.”)
Now set this as your “me” purpose. Know that despite all your other worldly goals, becomingutterly fearless is your overall mission.
Sit back. Smile. Watch your Life change.