How to we let go? There is a difference between “letting go” and “giving up” being pessimistic, cynical, prejudiced, and thinking that life can’t go on, so one feels forced to temporarily give up. But if one day temptation appears, we resume the former habits of our personality.  In Buddhism, this is giving up, not letting go. For instance, if one day we get a better watch, our greed for our old watch disappears. This is not letting go; this is just transferring our attachment to the new watch. In Buddhism, “letting go” means to have no greed for anything. It is impossible to give up all worldly things. People in the world need to survive and feed their families and they should not just throw away their jobs and families, or give up earning money, once they start to study Buddhism.

~ Luminous Wisdom 9: The Principles of Liberation