The Art of Letting Go

There is a Zen Buddhist Riddle (which are called Koans) that poses the question "How do you stop the ringing of a distant bell?"

It's eerily similar to another ancient conundrum: "How do you get over *insert problem that won't go away*?" I find it difficult to get over certain things. I had a fantastic TV audition the other week and I know they have already moved on to the next episode and would have contacted me and there is no use dwelling over it and everything else a brain can and will logically inform me but something in me keeps screaming "THEY'RE GONNA CALL."

There are people in my life, some that I love dearly and some maybe not so much, that have the ability to ring my emotional gong. I obsess over what they say, or I fantasize over what I want to say to them, or maybe I spend the rest of the day in a state of unrest and uneasiness. I tell myself to keep moving forward but they won't leave my mind. I wish that I wasn't so affected by these people and that my days aren't taken over by their presence in my mind.

Why can't I control my feelings? Why is it that my memories and logic aren't enough to quell my hope? I tell myself I'm causing unnecessary pain, I acknowledge the correctness of that statement, and then I continue obsessing and fantasizing. I feel like two different people. I'm going to let you in on one of my secrets: You can't stop the ringing of a distant bell. And we can't stop our humanity. We can, however, stop with the stopping and start with the... anything else. What we do, dear readers, is our art.