Let go…

I’ve been reading a The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying and there was a little excerpt about relationships. Upon reading it, I realized that what the author was talking about, is exactly what happened to me, well, in a sense it was. He talks about when we feel the relationship is about to end, we cling tightly to the ones we love, only driving them further away because we’re trying too hard. Really, it boils down to misidentified love as attachment. It’s a great little piece out of this book, which I’ll probably never finish at this point since I’ve moved past this whole Buddhist thing, but I originally had started reading this book when reading a thread about things to do before you die. It was brought up by a guy who was terminal and had only a short amount of time to live. He asked people what he should do, and someone said to read this book. They said it helped them cope with death and dying and made them fully understand how it all fits into this world. Now, I don’t know if that’s true for me, but what I read seemed good, but this piece below really got me good.

Let us now think of what frequently happens in relationships. So often it is only when people suddenly feel they are losing their partner that they realize that they love them. Then they cling on even tighter. But the more they grasp, the more the other person escapes them, and the more fragile their relationship becomes.
So often we want happiness, but the very way we pursue it is so clumsy and unskillful that it brings only more sorrow. Usually we assume we must grasp in order to have that something that will ensure our happiness. We ask ourselves: How can we possibly enjoy anything if we cannot own it? How often attachment is mistaken for love! Even when the relationship is a good one, love is spoiled by attachment, with its insecurity, possessiveness, and pride; and then when love is gone, all you have left to show for it are the “souvenirs” of love, the scars of attachment.