When Letting Go Is Not a Choice, But a Lesson

Last week, I lost something I had worn nearly every day since 2018.

A gold chain my grandmother gave me shortly after my grandfather passed away.

I wore it not because of its value, but because of what it represented. My grandfather was instrumental in the Greensboro Sit Ins and played a meaningful role in helping secure funding and small business loans for Black owned businesses in Baltimore. Even today, his name carries weight because of the service he offered and the lives he impacted.

Wearing that chain was my way of carrying his legacy with me. It reminded me of how I want to live and show up in the world. With conviction. With confidence. With a responsibility that extends beyond myself.

The day I lost it began like any other.

I went to a new massage place and, for once, followed the instructions that asked clients to remove all jewelry. I usually never take the chain off, but that day I did. I placed everything carefully in the center console of my car. My running watch, my fitness tracker, and my necklace.

After the massage, I returned to my car and put everything back on, or so I thought. I went into DC, walked around Georgetown, and moved through the day unaware that something meaningful was already gone.

It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed the chain was no longer around my neck.

That familiar rush came quickly. The tightening in the body. The mental replay of every step I had taken. The instinct to panic and retrace what suddenly felt irreversible.

But something different happened this time.

I paused. I used a simple tapping technique to help my body release the stress it was holding. I searched my car thoroughly. And then, sooner than I expected, I reached a place of acceptance.

Not because the loss didn’t matter, but because I recognized something deeper unfolding in that moment.

As high achievers, we are often conditioned to believe that control is what keeps us safe. We manage our time, our outcomes, and our future because control feels like competence. In many ways, it serves us. Until it doesn’t.

There comes a point when life reminds us that control has limits, not to punish us, but to teach us where trust must take over. We can do everything right and still be asked to release something we were not ready to let go of.

Losing that chain did not diminish my grandfather’s legacy or the values he lived by. If anything, it clarified something I already knew but had not fully integrated.

Legacy is not something you carry on your body. It is something you carry in how you move through the world.

This experience reminded me that there is a balance between effort and surrender that many of us struggle to find. We are taught to push, hold, and grip tightly to what matters. But sometimes growth asks us to loosen our grasp, not because we were careless, but because we are ready.

If you are in a season where holding tightly feels exhausting, consider this a moment to pause. To notice where trust might serve you better than force.

We do what we can with intention and integrity. And then we allow life to meet us where we are.

Because success does not come from control alone.

Sometimes, it comes from letting go.

Chazz Scott