Letting Go of Preferences

A central theme running through my life—and through this collection of essays—is the struggle to surrender to what is. Letting things be without forcing them into the shape of my preferences has always felt like an elusive ideal.

Is it realistic to aspire to the Eastern ideal of giving up preferences altogether? The notion sounds noble: accept everything simply because it happens. But when something occurs that we do not want, the mind rebels. Sustained resistance becomes a recipe for chronic distress, even madness.

And yet, the alternative—radical acceptance—can feel equally impossible. Still, if peace of mind is a priority, the effort seems worth making. Are there people who can truly extinguish preference and live in equanimity, untouched by sadness, anger, fear, or even joy?

The question: Do you think it is realistic or possible to give up preference and truly let go? And what do you believe the Eastern philosophers meant by striving to do so?

What Does it Mean to Live an Examined Life?

Jack Baruch, MD

After decades of working as a psychiatrist, I've come to believe that much of human suffering does not come only from dramatic events, but from the quiet assumptions people carry about themselves and their lives. Assumptions about who they are, what they deserve, what they should have become, and how life was supposed to go.

An examined life is not a perfect life. It is a life in which one becomes curious about one's own patterns, one's own choices, and one's own story. It is a life in which we begin to question the conclusions we reached long ago, often without realizing it.

We are all unreliable narrators of our own lives to some degree. We remember selectively, we interpret defensively, and we construct meaning after the fact. Over time, the story we tell ourselves about our lives can become fixed, and we begin to live inside that story as if it were fact rather than interpretation.

The examined life is the slow process of becoming more honest about the story we are telling ourselves. It is not about self-criticism as much as it is about self-curiosity. It is about the willingness to look again—at our past, our choices, our disappointments, and even our successes—and ask if the story we have been telling is the only story that can be told.

Perhaps the examined life is simply this: The willingness to look again.

At this stage in your life, do you feel you are still living your life—or are you beginning to examine it?

What Does it Really Mean to Let Go?

Jack Baruch, MD

Reflection:

There comes a point in life when we realize that holding on and letting go are not opposites but partners. We hold on to identities to roles, to old stories about who we are and how life was supposed to go. Much of human suffering does not come from what happened to us, but from the quiet insistence that life should have been different.

Letting go is often spoken about as if it were a single decision, a moment of courage or acceptance. But in reality, letting go is usually a slow process. It happens in layers. First, we let go of what we thought would happen. Then we let go of who we thought we would be. And finally, if we are fortunate, we let go of the idea that life is supposed to follow a particular script at all.

There is a strange freedom that comes when we stop arguing with the past. Not happiness exactly, but a lightness. A little more room inside ourselves. A little less bitterness. A little more curiosity about whatever time remains.

Perhaps letting go is not about losing something, but about making room for something else—a different way of seeing, a different way of being, a different way of telling the story of our lives.

Ending Question:

What, in your life, have you had to let go of—and was it a loss, or was it a kind of freedom?

Can We Make Peace With Regret?

Jack Baruch, MD

Reflection:

If you sit with people long enough and listen carefully, you begin to notice that regret is one of the most common human emotions. Not always spoken directly, but present—just under the surface. Regret about relationships, about chances not taken, about words not said, about paths not chosen. By the time people reach later life, almost no one believes their life unfolded exactly as they once imagined it would.

We tend to think of regret as a sign that something went wrong, that we made a mistake, that we should have known better. But this may be too simple. Regret is also the price we pay for living a life in which we had to choose. Every choice eliminates other possible lives. We marry one person and not another. We choose one career and not another. We stay in one city and leave another.

The real question is not whether we will have regret. We will. The question is what we do with it. Some people turn regret into bitterness, while others turn it into wisdom. There is no life without the shadow of the unlived life. Regret can harden a person, or it can soften them. It can make a person narrower, or it can make them more compassionate, more understanding of the quiet struggles of other people.

Perhaps making peace with regret does not mean eliminating it. Perhaps it means learning how to carry it differently. Not as a verdict on our life, but as a reminder that we were human, that we did not know everything at the time, that we made the best choices we could with the person we were then.

Ending Question:

If you could speak to your younger self, would you give different advice—or would you simply tell them that life is more complicated than they think?

When Does Intention Become Action

Jack Baruch, MD

Most people intend to change long before they actually do. They intend to exercise, to repair a relationship, to write, to retire, to move, to forgive, to begin something, or to end something. Intention is very common. Action is much rarer.

In my years of working with people, I have often noticed that the distance between intention and action is where many lives become stuck. People are usually not confused about what they want to do. They are not even confused about what they should do. What keeps them stuck is something quieter— fear, habit, comfort, guilt, the opinions of others, or the belief that there will always be more time.

We tend to think of change as a decision, but more often, change is a threshold. People live with intention for years, sometimes decades, before something shifts and an intention becomes action. Sometimes the shift is a crisis. Sometimes it is a loss. Sometimes it is an illness. And sometimes it is simply the gradual realization that time is not unlimited.

There is a moment that comes for many people when the question changes from “What do I want to do?” to “If not now, when?” That is often the moment when intention finally becomes action.

Is there something in your life that you have been intending to do for a long time—and what is keeping you from doing it now?