The One Skill: How Mastering the Art of Letting Go Will Change Your Life

By Leo Babauta

In the One Skill: How Mastering the Art of Letting Go Will Change Your Life, Leo Babauta, the creative mind behind the successful simplicty and mindfulness blog, Zen Habits, discusses the issue of 'letting go' when it comes to all sort of situations in life and provides some practical steps to start letting go of these difficulties and unhealthly influences and embrace a happier and more fulfilled life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Founders House Publishing LLC
• Release date: Jun 19, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393054245

Leo Babauta

Leo Babauta has been a reporter, editor, speechwriter, and freelance writer for the last 17 years. Babauta lives in Guam with his wife and five children, where he posts regularly on ZenHabits.net.

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Contents

Introduction

Dedication

Uncopyright

Chapter 1 | Why Letting Go

Chapter 2 | Dealing with Procrastination

Chapter 3 | Dealing with Fear

Chapter 4| Dealing with Difficult People

Chapter 5 | Dealing with Distractions

Chapter 6 | Dealing with Habits

Chapter 7 | Dealing with Possessions

Chapter 8 | Dealing with Resistance from Others

Chapter 9 | Dealing with Change

Chapter 10 | Dealing with Loss

Chapter 11 | Developing the Letting Go Skill

Chapter 12 | The 1st Skill - Noticing Signals

Chapter 13 | The 2nd Skill - Seeing the Ideal

Chapter 14 | The 3rd Skill - Seeing the Harm

Chapter 15 | The 4th Skill - Letting Go with Love

Chapter 16 | The 5th Skill - Seeing Reality

Chapter 17 | Practicing the Skills

Chapter 18 | How to Act After Letting Go

Chapter 19 | What Letting Go Isn't

Chapter 20 | Examples of Letting Go

Chapter 21 | Where to Go Next

About the Author

Copyright Information

The One Skill

How Mastering the Art of

Letting Go Will Change Your Life

Leo Babauta

Introduction

No one would argue that ‘letting go’ is hard to do. No matter where you are at life you are probably holding onto to something, some habit, some grievance, some idea that doesn’t work or might even be harmful. Author and blogger, Leo Babauta, has been there too. In his book The One Skill: How Mastering the Art of Letting Go Will Change Your Life, Babauta brings out a few insights and offers some practical steps that will help you to just ‘let go’ and maybe bring a bit more peace, focus, and thoughtfulness, to your life. Enjoy this new edition.

Sincerely,

Shaun Kilgore

Founders House Publishing LLC

Dedication

This book is written out of gratitude for my wonderful readers, who’ve been a constant source of encouragement and support over the years. It has meant more than I can express. Thank you.

Uncopyright

This work is free of copyright, and is in the public domain. The author completely and explicitly releases any copyrights. No permission is required to reprint all or part of the book, though attribution is appreciated.

Chapter 1

Why Letting Go

The root of all of our problems is our inability to let go.

I gleaned this idea from a book on Zen Buddhism one day a few years ago, and it struck me in its simplicity.

Could it be true?

Consider this idea: a bird in flight. The bird lives totally in the moment, completely focused on its flight, perhaps using its sharp eyes to search for food.

It doesn’t start thinking, Why does it have to be so cold here? What do the other birds think of me? What am I going to do when I meet up with the other birds later? Will I be successful at nest building? Why can’t I have bigger breasts? Why can’t I wake up earlier like the other birds?

And so on.

Of course, as humans we have bigger brains than the bird, and we can solve problems and create poetry and build skyscrapers. So we have lots more ability and lots more going on than the simple bird floating on the wind.

These bigger brains, though, cause us all the problems that we have. I don’t mean the problems with poverty and disease, but the problems with overthinking things, feeling anxiety and frustration and depression and anger over the things that happen to us and might happen to us and have already happened to us but that we can’t stop thinking about.

So I’ve been testing out this Zen idea in the last few years, and the results have been amazing: I’ve reduced my stress, started procrastinating less, improved my