Closing Cycles by Paulo Coelho~

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying
longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the
other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending
chapters - whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the
moments of life that have finished.

Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave
your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended
all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You
can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain
things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust,
just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone
involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your
sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting
on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill. None of us
can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to
understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we
cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor
towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who
has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and
the best we can do is to let them really go away.

That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy
souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the
books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of
the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts - and getting rid of
certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their
place.Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this
life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not
expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your
genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your
emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one
that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning
you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken
off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are
always put off waiting for the "ideal moment." Before a new chapter is begun,
the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never
come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that
thing or that person - nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This
may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply
because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean
the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you
are.

"Love is a commitment of the heart that will stand the test of wavering
emotions, intellectual rationalizing, circumstantial allure, hormonal
infatuation, and even the wounds of your lover. Anything less is not true
love."