Certain interactions live rent-free in my head: a friend dismissing my very sound advice, my landlord insisting my roach-infested apartment has no roaches, a last-minute gate change resulting in me running to catch my flight. 

I know I’m giving these annoyances much more thought than they deserve, but that doesn’t stop me from stewing. 

That’s why I was interested in reading my colleague Renée Onque’s articleon the book “How to Let Things Go” by Shunmyo Masuno, a Zen Buddhist monk. It offers five ways to keep yourself from getting hung up on the small stuff.  

1 Aim to be more detached from relationships. You cannot change people, and thinking you can will only frustrate you more. “Commit to observing, not intervening” in your personal relationships, Masuno writes. 

2 Hold onto only your important concerns. “According to one theory, the ability to forget is an instinct for self-preservation,” Masuno writes. Allow yourself to push the trivial things out of your mind and you’ll be less likely to work yourself up over them. 

3 Be mindful with your interactions. You don’t need to know all things, all the time. Many people seek information without factoring in that “all too often, its accuracy is dubious, it’s of little importance to you, and it heightens your anxiety,” Mansuno writes.

4 Avoid wasting your energy. Failures and successes become a thing of the past the very moment after they occur. So immerse yourself in the now and in activities that engage you. 

5 Remember that nothing is black and white.Labeling your choices as “good” or “bad” doesn’t serve you. “All we can do is concentrate on what demands our attention right now in order to turn our failures into opportunities for growth and to prevent our fears from becoming reality,” Mansuno writes. 

Accepting that I can’t control my friends or family, and leaving my past decisions and experiences where they belong, in the past, is easier said than done. But with Masuno’s guidance I feel a little more equipped to actually let things go.

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