Let go and Let God

Thomas Finnucan
Best Piece of Advice

Let Go and Let God

It was the middle of the summer following my junior year of high school and I was feeling very nervous. I was frantically comparing my SAT scores, GPA, and QPA to the people that were accepted from Amity to the colleges that I wanted to go to. I was trying to figure out what schools were realistic and what schools were out of my reach. This process was causing me tons of grief I was getting really frustrated and mad. I kept saying to myself “What is the point in doing all this work if I am not going to end up where I want.”
I was feed up with the college process, I was tired of visiting schools and I was tired of writing swim coaches letters I just wanted the whole process to be over and done with. This was when I looked over onto the file cabinet and saw my recruiting letter from The College of the Holy Cross just sitting there not mailed. I thought to my self for a moment “Is that the letter to the swim coach that was supposed to go out last week? It can’t be that letter because that letter was the thank you response for visit he had with me at the school.”At this moment I began to panic I was so previously overwhelmed with college stuff that this final setback pushed me over the edge. I couldn’t believe that the letter hadn’t been sent. My mind was so clouded by the crushing volume of tasks I had to complete for colleges that I let this little problem throw me off the edge. I instantly became infuriated with the incompetence of my family. I had asked them to complete one simple task, send out my recruiting letters but they were incapable of doing this. I threw the work that was in front of me off my desk and got up to send the late Holy Cross letter. It was at this moment that my mom came into the room to see what I had been yelling about. I explained to her in a rather rude tone that we had forgotten to send the recruiting letter and that now I probably wasn’t going to get into Holy Cross. At this moment my mother said to me one of the most valuable pieces of advice that I have ever heard. It was simple and clear “Let go and let god.” She said there is nothing you can do to fix the letter. She told me that I had to realize that when things become out of our control we must realize that they are out of our control and accept that their fate lies in the hands of god. I looked at her for a moment and then realized that she was right. My bickering and worrying over the letter wasn’t really going to accomplish anything all it was going to do would be to make me upset and worried and ultimately slow down my college process. I thanked her for her advice and continued to fill out paperwork and right essay and such for colleges. It wasn’t for a good twenty minutes that I realized what my mother’s advice really meant. She wasn’t just speaking about the letter she was speaking about my current state of panic over schools. My junior year grades were closed, my SATs were in, and my swimming times were submitted. All the aspects of the college search and application process that I had direct control of were essentially completed. There was not reason for me to feel the way that I felt, there was no need to feel pressured and rushed. I needed to realize that the rest of this process was in higher powers hands not mine. And this allowed me to realize that things were okay and that I could relax a little and not be so pressured by work. This advice surely saved my sanity.
This bit of advice has helped me through many situations I have applied it to many situations were I have been nervous or anxious over a troublesome event that I have not control over. It figures that my mother would be the one to give me this advice; my mother has always been my source of wisdom in this case the old saying mother knows best is really true. My mother got the term “Let go and let god” from one of her catholic school teacher seminars however it think that the idea goes beyond the idea of religion. The idea of turning things over to god does not need to be literally it simply means to let go of things and let fate or destiny take care of things. It is the idea of letting go of your problems because there is nothing more you can do which gives this advice power. People always tend to try to latch on to problems that they cannot control this is unhealthy and breeds unhappiness and stress. Only when one realizes that they must stop worrying over the problems in their life and turn them over to a higher power can they truly be at peace. I believe that this peace of advice holds true because for all of us we try to fix things that are beyond our power. This advice teaches us to let go of these things and focus on what we can control, thus helping us to live healthier better lives.