Practice Living Without What You Love
You need to practice living without the things you love. If you love food, you need to fast for a day, or spend a week without indulging in your favorite dishes. If you cannot live without books, you should spend a month living without them.
If you cannot live without someone, if you think you are addicted to someone, then you must definitely learn to live without them. Do things that do not involve them. You must experience the blank space in your head that emerges when you are forced to engage with uncomfortable things.
It’s important to discover who you are without the things you depend on. Because when you love something so deeply, it starts to define who you are. A person doesn’t say they love trying new food, they say they are a foodie. That translates into an identity. The same goes for every other identity.
Someone who enjoys reading wears the identity of a reader. Then they start to act out that identity. They refuse to find pleasure in doing meaningless things in life because they are a reader. Soon, they start picking up books that “advanced” readers read, even when they don’t enjoy them. Soon, they have to know the latest books. They read all the classics because that identity compels them to know everything about books.
What you love becomes your identity. This can also become a trap that prevents you from exploring anything else. When you refuse to indulge in these things even for a few days, you are forced to confront another side of your personality, the one that never had the chance to emerge.
Telling yourself that you are on a break from your earlier identity makes it easier to indulge in other activities. If you enjoy them, you can do more of them. If you don’t, there’s no pressure to continue enjoying them.
Don’t let the things you love become your identity. We enjoy many things on the journey of life. Our choices evolve, and so does our identity. Do not get trapped in things that are temporary in nature. What you love has to be cherished. Don’t let it become your cage.