Did you know that we feel our losses 2 to 2.5 times more than we feel our gains? In other words, if we lost $100, it would feel 2 to 2.5 times worse that it would feel good if we won $100.

I think to some extent, we all fear loss- and as a result, we often respond in one of two ways. Sometimes, we’ll cling too tight to the things we fear losing. We wrap ourselves up in things that ultimately don’t make us who we are at all- like the infatuation with money, or the need to have a prestigious career title. We carefully guard everything- from our computers and clothes, to our books and phones. We guard some things like we’d be lost without them…when maybe, the truth is that we’re really lost with them.

Other times, we avoid anything worth losing altogether. We fear the pain of working hard and falling in love with something worth holding onto, so we never reach out to grab it. For instance, some of us have brilliant business ideas that, if put into action, would really fill our souls- ideas that would change other people’s lives, and most certainly our own. But, too often, we never move forward with the ideas we dream about because we are so afraid of what could be lost if we fail. We never go for it at all, and we are left wondering how things might be different if we had just taken a leap of faith. 

The bigger the potential loss, the more we avoid it. It is our fear of losing that stops us from experiencing things big and small- from jumping into the ocean for the first time and learning what a wave of salty blue water feels like on our skin, to falling in love and learning what it feels like to be loved back.

The bigger the risk, the greater the reward. And with the biggest risks- like choosing to let people into our lives and loving them for simply caring enough to be part of it for a while, the reward is just that- letting people in and loving them.

Despite how painful it is to lose something, we must embrace loss- because life is full it. Throughout the course of each of our lives, we are bound to lose a lot- from simple things like pens and books, to bigger things like jobs and money. And no matter how many of those things we lose, no loss will hurt more than that of losing the ones we love. Sometimes we’ll lose them because their time has run out on this earth…maybe after a long life, and maybe after a short one. Other times we’ll lose the ones we love because the time we were meant to spend with them has run out…after many years, or just a few moments.

But the point isn’t to spend our time trying not to lose what matters to us, or to avoid getting too close to anything that would hurt to lose in the first place. The point is simply to embrace whatever we are lucky enough to have…from the simple things, like dinners and dollars- to the much bigger things… like the people who walk into our lives, however long or briefly they are with us, by plan or serendipity.

It’s hard not to think about the pain that any kind of loss brings. But in those moments that make you want to cling tight to what you fear losing, or that make you want to avoid embracing anything that you wouldn’t want to lose in the first place, remember:

Loss will remind you of what maters. It will keep you humble and grounded. It will get you to rethink who you are and who you want to be.

And, often you’ll find that in the process of losing something else, that’s when you really find yourself.