Article February 1, 1999 Issue

Don't confuse giving up with letting go

How I avoided failure

By Clifford Kapps Eriksen

Do you feel as if you've reached an impasse in your life with no way out? In utter despair, have you decided to give up? Don't! Instead, learn to let go. This is an idea that came to me years ago when I was faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem, and it set me on a path of spiritual discovery that quickly resolved the problem.

I was a graduate student in an accelerated program, and the workload was extraordinarily demanding. I decided to take an "easy" course—astronomy. But midway through the course, I found myself wrestling for nine hours with one problem on a take-home examination—and this was the only exam given. I had since discovered that the course was not one devoted to identifying the Big Dipper or the Milky Way, as I had expected. It was a down-to-earth, nuts-and-bolts course in mathematics and physics, which were never my strongest subjects.

With heavy heart, therefore, I decided to give up. I made an appointment with the instructor to withdraw from the course. Since he couldn't see me for an hour, I spent the time reading "God's Orbits," an article by Julia. M. Johnston in The Christian Science Journal (May 1959). It included this intriguing question: "Since the earth and the moon are unswervingly kept in their course, is it strange to assume that man, God's paramount work, must be held in forever unfoldment of the divine dominion bestowed upon him?" (p. 226)

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