Random African thought series: Attachments

I have had a "problem" since I was a child, the people who know about it think it is rather a "deficiency". I have serious issues of letting go of the people and things I love when they are "no more". I grow fond of or let me say I am fond of many things. I believe this "deficiency" started with my mother. I suckled at her breasts for three years as a child. It took some bitter drug she used on her nipple to cause me stop breastfeeding.

Even after I was weaned, I could not sleep if I did not put my hand on my mum's breast. I was guilty of this for another 12 years. It took me going to boarding school to break this habit. I could not see anything more comforting than "them" People are fond of many people and many things even stranger than mine.

One thing I have come to realize about fondness is that you tend to get complacent when you are attached to something because you know that whatever be the case, "it" will still be there for you. You resolve to make do with that person or thing because to you it is your only source of joy and you cannot see beyond that person or thing.

I also realized that by virtue of the fact that you grow fond of someone or something does not automatically qualify you to receive that same amount of fondness in return. Even more important is the fact that holding on too much to something or someone will not allow you to critically analyse if you are doing something wrong or right and it also "prevents" you from meeting better or worse.

What I am trying to drive at is change and the fact that "do not get too attached to things; learn to let go". I read a book on great quotes and it had a quote on change which read, "Being willing to change allows you to move from a point of view to a viewing point - a higher, more expansive place, from which you can see both sides". (Thomas Crum).

Sometimes in life what people really need is just a little change; a change of ideology, attitude, feelings, commitment, tradition, culture and so on. Sometimes as human as we are, we tend to get comfortable with our present situations when in actual fact we can have that and more (just like me and my mother's breasts).

There are better things in store for all of us. It is left to us to take that big leap of faith and let go of the old habits that give us short term pleasures because as my brother and fellow writer put it, "Short term pleasures are equivalent to long term losses". Let us therefore seek long term pleasures that have no strings attached.

This fact notwithstanding, there are some attachments we cannot do without like my attachment to breasts so dear future wife, be ready- that is just on the lighter side. All we may need to turn our situations is just a little change.

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