Hold on Loosely

Take a handful of playdoh and roll it up into a perfect ball. Place the playdoh in your hand with your palm facing upward and slight cupped. If you tilt your hand side to side, the playdoh will roll back and fourth and ultimately fall out of the cup back to the table.

Now, place the playdoh back in your hand and fold your hand over fully without pressing into the ball. You can tilt your hand back and fourth, even shake your hand. The ball will roll around inside your hand, maybe even shift it's shape slightly but, will remain within your hand.

Next, grip as tightly as you can into the playdoh. Try to keep it in that ball form and do not allow any to escape through the cracks of your fingers but, squeeze as hard as you can. The ball will quickly be destroyed and, no matter how hard you fight, the playdoh will begin to escape through your fingers.

Consider this ball your relationships, your friendships, even your goals. The harder and tighter you hold onto someone or an idea, the more you destroy the initial thing you were holding onto. The tighter you hold onto how something "should be" or how someone "should act" the more you will have to fight with things going "wrong".

On the other side...no effort at all, and you lose everything.

It's an almost impossible balance to obtain. Somehow, you have to keep the goal in mind, or show the person affection, let it shift and move around, without grasping too tightly or letting go (I seem to remember a song about this...).

The point is, the harder we try to fight to keep things exactly the same and in the same place, the more we are at risk of destroying it completely. 

Things change, people change, goals change.