捨不得 is a Chinese expression that can be loosely translated into “not ready to let go”. It can refer to not willing to let go, or not able to let go. It can also mean not prepared to afford or not wanting to pay the price, which is more obvious in the Cantonese version 唔捨得.
Letting something go is what we all have to learn.
Having had something good and beautiful and then losing it (valuable experience, relationships, material conditions, objects) is difficult for most of us.
I have learned about grief, grieving and mourning from many people. First and foremost, my clients in psychotherapy are my heroes who have been through unspeakable difficulties and experienced all sorts of immense loss. I have also benefited a lot from my readings in clinical psychology, literature, and insightful films. Well, stories of lived experience of courageous human beings. My friends who study Phenomenology helped me conceptualize intellectually back in the early 80s. My partner has done grief work professionally and has taught me extremely valuable lessons, including what she has gone through with me.
I have experienced the loss of many things that are important to me. The social context when I grew up has disappeared into history. Earlier this year I gave a memorial lecture for my teacher, the late Ms Heiman Lee, at the University of Hong Kong. While I was mourning her, I was also mourning the university system that I once knew, and it is now gone forever.
I have experienced significant financial loss, but that did not bother me too much. My experience as an immigrant has been punctuated with losses regularly. Life has nonetheless been generous, and I have always been thankful.
I first started to ponder the issue of death seriously in the late 70s. I had important people in my life who died young. I have been through breakups, divorce, and serious deterioration of significant relationships. I have also lost people who did not die young, but were very significant, still are, actually. I wonder one can ever fully “work through”.
When you are about to lose something important, you are not willing to let go.
When you have already lost something important, you still do not want to let go.
Do we really have to let go?
Can 捨不得/唔捨得 just be our state of mind? 情怀/情懷？
Can it not be a form of valuing, maintaining an intense emotional connection with some precious parts of ourselves, our history, and Life itself?
Website: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/cant-let-go-%E5%94%94%E6%8D%A8%E5%BE%97%E6%8D%A8%E4%B8%8D%E5%BE%97-a-ka-tat-tsang