LET IT GO: THE COST OF HOLDING ON

There’s a famous Zen parable that captures something quietly profound about how we carry emotional weight. Jon Muth retells it beautifully in Zen Shorts:

Two traveling monks reached a town where there was a young woman waiting to step out of her sedan chair. The rains had made deep puddles, and she couldn’t step across without spoiling her silken robes. She stood there, looking very cross and impatient. She was scolding her attendants. They had nowhere to place the packages they held for her, so they couldn’t help her across the puddle.

The younger monk noticed the woman, said nothing and walked by. The older monk quickly picked her up and put her on his back, transported her across the water, and put her down on the other side. She didn’t thank the older monk; she just shoved him out of the way and departed.

As they continued on their way, the young monk was brooding and preoccupied. After several hours, unable to hold his silence, he spoke out. “That woman back there was very selfish and rude, but you picked her up on your back and carried her! Then, she didn’t even thank you!”

“I set the woman down hours ago,” the older monk replied. “Why are you still carrying her?”

The story may be old (no one’s riding in sedan chairs anymore), but its meaning feels timeless.

In both life and money, it’s easy to become emotionally invested in things that no longer serve us. A sour interaction. A moment of embarrassment. A market move we didn’t see coming. A stock we swore would rebound. We carry these things, sometimes for hours, sometimes for years, long after we should have set them down.

At Paradigm, we believe a big part of your financial well-being is emotional clarity. If you wouldn’t keep an underperforming asset in your portfolio, why hold on to emotional baggage with equally poor returns?

Want help sorting out which investments, financial or emotional, are still worth carrying? Let’s talk.