Don’t Let Go

You know how sometimes when you are in the process of handing something to someone, you let go just a second or so before they fully grasp it and take it from you? Whenever this happens, whatever you were handing to the other person usually ends up falling to the floor. You needed to hold on just a little bit longer, at least until the other person had finished getting a good hold on the object. Something caused you to let go too soon. Maybe you were distracted by something else. It could have been another person or the next thing you needed to accomplish. Perhaps you thought the other person already had the object firmly in their grasp. Maybe you assumed that they did because every other time you had ever handed something to them they’d always grabbed onto it right away. You didn’t check to make sure they had a firm grip on the object because you didn’t think you had to check. You were surprised when it fell to the floor. As we age (or whenever we get extremely busy) this can happen with our brains. When we, or the outside world, offers a piece of information to our brain such as the name of something, a time and date, or some other small piece of useful information, we reach for it and hand it to our brain. We assume our brain has it, but sometimes we let go before our brain has fully latched onto it. It falls to the floor. We don’t even notice that it falls. What we do notice is that it’s not there when we go back later to retrieve it. Perhaps if we pause and focus just a bit longer on those little pieces of information our brains will have enough time to hold onto what’s being offered.

2021