Attachment plays an important role in life, but misconceptions about it are common and often reinforced by popular culture (e.g. a detached hero has been glorified in many Hollywood movies) so let’s start with clarifying how this term is used here.

What attachment is

The term attachment was first used in psychology in the mid- twentieth century to signify the relationship between an infant and its mother. Soon after, the use of this expression has spread to any other significant relationships. Here, this term has an even wider meaning, as reflected in everyday language. It refers to a subjective sense of connectedness to something or somebody else. This is different from the above-mentioned use in several ways:

• Attachment is not only limited to relationships with other people. It can also include attachment to animals (e.g. pets), objects (such as money), ideas (e.g. socialism), places (one’s country or town), activities (a job or hobby), pleasures (e.g. food) or styles (e.g. fashion, music).
• The sense of attachment cannot be equated with emotions, although it very often involves them. It is possible to be attached to somebody or something without being emotional (out of habit, for example), and to be emotional without being attached (e.g. when watching a movie).
• Attachment does not depend on physical proximity or social roles. For instance, it is possible to live with one’s spouse and not feel attached to her, or not live with somebody (who can even be dead) and still be attached to her.

To bring some clarity, we will draw from the Eastern traditions and break up this umbrella term into three related concepts: attachment, non-attachment and detachment. They can be seen as a part of the same continuum.

This area is closely related to values. The term importance rather than, for example, ‘value formation’, is used because it is more encompassing. Values are reducible to importance, but not the other way around: everything valuable is also important, but not everything that is important is valuable (e.g. earthquakes are important but generally not valued). This title also emphasises that the area is not concerned with forming moral, political or cultural values, but with the process of ascribing importance (to an object, person, activity, or idea). The factors that affect such a process and its consequences will be the main focus here. Before that it may be worthwhile considering what is important to us and why.

What is important for me and why?

Knowing what is really important to us is not straightforward. This can be distorted by immediate desires, other people or old habits. Furthermore, we sometimes make the object of our need or desire more important than the need or desire itself, which may lead to fixation and prevent us from recognising other options. For example, you are hungry and you start thinking about a burger. The burger becomes important, rather than satisfying hunger and you miss a chance to eat something nicer and healthier. So, it is worthwhile examining if what you think is important really is. The following questions may help in this respect:

• Choose an object, person, event, activity or principle and consider why it is important for you. For example, if it is football, why is this the case? Is it an old habit? Is it because it was important to your dad when you were growing up? Or is it because football is a refuge from the everyday grind?
• Which part of what you picked up is really important for you? (E.g. in the case of football it may be spending time with your mates, so football itself is, in fact, secondary).

The exercise below can help further with clarifying your priorities.

Death has a special significance because it is the boundary of physical existence and the only future certainty. In this area we will mainly examine the ways we can relate to death, as this can have profound effects on our attitudes towards life (e.g. our decision making). Loss and grieving will also be addressed.

Why it is good to accept death

The two basic ways of relating to death are acceptance and denial. It is quite common to deny death for as long as possible. Denial of death enables us to avoid, at least temporarily, fear and other unpleasant feelings usually associated with death. However, many philosophers and psychologists have recognised the value of being aware of our mortality and accepting death, and warned against denial. There are some sound reasons for this:

• Death is a part of the life cycle and denying it means denying life as it is – accepting death, therefore, enables us to take life in its totality.
• Sooner or later everybody has to face death (that of others and finally their own), which is harder to do if unprepared; those who accept death as a part of life are in a better position and more in control in such situations.
• Accepting death puts in perspective small misfortunes and self- importance, and can make us more courageous.
• The awareness of death can contribute to decision making and prioritising too; it reminds us that the time to accomplish our projects is limited and that nothing can be taken for granted.
• Many have observed or experienced that being aware of death leads to a greater respect of life and finding value in every moment – somewhat paradoxically, it makes us more alive.

The following exercise is an example of how the awareness of death may affect your present attitude and behaviour:

The sense of security is one of the basic human drives and unlike fear, for example, it does not always have an object: you may experience insecurity without a specific reason. This is because our sense of security (or lack of it) is mainly related to uncertainty. Uncertainty, on the other hand, can induce anxiety. So, before we turn to security itself, let’s consider anxiety first. We all experience anxiety from time to time, but many people nowadays suffer from excessive anxiety. Understanding what anxiety is and how to deal with it may be helpful.

Anxiety

Fear and anxiety are often used interchangeably nowadays, but to deal with anxiety better, it is important to understand that they are not the same. In fact, there is some evidence that they differ even on the level of physiological reactions, such as gastrointestinal activities.(1) The crucial difference is that an element of uncertainty, rather than an actual danger, is linked to anxiety. In other words, while fear has a clear object (we are always afraid of something), anxiety does not – it is an expression of our awareness of uncertainty: for instance, if a tiger appears in your room you will feel fear; if there is uncertainty whether a tiger will appear or not, you will feel anxiety. Here is a more realistic example of uncertainties associated with an exam: ‘What questions will we get? Am I prepared enough? Will I pass?’ You may be afraid of the consequences of failing, but your anxiety arises because of these uncertainties. Nowadays, there are a lot of uncertainties around, probably more than ever (regarding finances, work, relationships, the political and economic situation, climate change, you name it) – hence we are experiencing an anxiety epidemic. But this also means that anxiety is not a sign that something is necessarily wrong with you – it may even be good in small doses!

Anxiety control

Anxiety is not always unpleasant and can improve, as well as disrupt performance. If induced by uncertainty of the outcome of a game, book, movie, date or adventure, it is usually desirable and sought after. However, when anxiety is mixed with insecurity