How many times have you read this? I guess many a times. Before you make any judgments about what is written below, let me ask you a question — You love your past but does your past love you? Strange question, answer may be stranger. Read on.
The answer is that your past does not love you. It cannot; because it is already dead. It is far gone. It became dead the very moment it passed. You miss it because you are a living being but as I said the case with time gone by is not the same. Now when you know it is dead what the point in living with it is? Think about it.
Wait a minute to understand more. Here we are talking about the past that creates negative vibes — lost opportunities, missed chances, relationships gone sour and stuff like that. I am glad that you understood.
By all means cherish all that is good that brings smile to your face — lovely memories, your time in wilderness, first time your child walked, your first salary, your first love (just in case more followed). These are all for keeps.
So now we understand the need to get away from – not so pleasant – part of the past. You are here so you realize it but who will tell other people – millions and millions of them. You will. Point your friends to this piece or write your own but do something.
This is a problem of individual and also of the humanity. In a world with population of close to 7 billion people the impact of this “living in the past” mentality is huge; because of this mentality world is losing on its chance to live today to the fullest.
People of the world and more importantly the leaders of the nations need to understand that past is a lost currency. The mistakes of yesteryears make today’s world bitter. If that was not the case people will be happier and we will experience a world where everybody was with a smile on their face.
Look at countries that have been living in the past. The past is so well ingrained in the psyche of their citizens that they see no future and do not enjoy the present.
A child in Iraq is same as a child in Russia, Ethiopia or India. If we forget the past and all mistakes that leaders of other countries have made then we will create the foundation of a new world — one world. I am a hopelessly positive person and would assume that you also are. So let us stop living in old world and the buried past. Let us create the foundation of a new world — one based on a religion called love and oneness.
There will be peace, joy and contentment and this can be our greatest present to future generations. A world free of war, hatred and filled with love, hope, possibilities and opportunities.
You may not realize but like laughter and love, hatred is also contagious. So when you act like hating somebody outside your country then chances are that you will also hate your own countrymen based on religion or geography. So hatred is not a good idea, love is.
You will agree that every great movement starts from an individual so move back from macro to micro – from world to one single person — the unit of a civilization. If we can set the individual right then neighborhoods will be alright. When neighborhoods will be all right so will be the states, countries and ultimately the world.
So let us try to get individuals out of the gloom of past. I say try because I can only share ideas — you, the one reading this piece, need to put this in action.
Let us understand why living in past is not such a good idea.
- It cannot give you anything: anything apart from lessons. It takes away precious time from you that you could have spent thinking ahead, acting in the direction of your dreams; giving love and providing genuine value to people around. The time you could have taken in living life to the fullest.
- Lost productivity: for example your work that was affected because of a terrible day meeting clients yesterday.
- Lost opportunities: when you are driven by past you tend to close yourself to exiting new vistas of growth.
Why it happens
- Because it is easy to let yourself loose thinking that;
- What is the harm in overeating today if you went on hogging entire past week?
- You cannot find real friends because you never had any – past your school days, not in college, not at work. May be you never gave yourself time to find people to become part of your life.
- You cannot succeed because none of your earlier attempts at entrepreneurship have succeeded. The real reason often is not trying long enough. If you think that you have tried then reason may be – impractical idea, wrong timing, not finding the right partners or trying to make a fast buck.
You got to remember that when you say all this to you then you are closing doors of opportunities on yourself.
- It also happens because we have been conditioned that way through influences spread over a long time.
How you can get out of the living in the past mould?
- Understand that there is light at the end of tunnel. Nobody knows about future. But it is a good idea to move into an unknown terrain with quiet confidence and hope that future has something good in store for you. Even if something — not so favorable – comes up then move ahead with a confident stride. If you do not do it then you will be the one to lose.
- Seek hope not despair: Read stories of hope and be in touch with people who tend to live in present than walk around like zombies of past.
- Learn to move on: Yes, what has occurred is a part of past. You cannot do anything about it. Of course you can have some takeaways — learning, ideas for a book or movie. That is all about it, nothing beyond. Move on after you have received your bit.
- Take good things along: Everything about past is not bad. There are good things also. There are sweet memories of selfless love and little moments of joy – like rain showers after a long hot day. Keep these moments, stories, people with you as long as you can. It will make moving on easier.
- Reality: Understand that present is a reality and past is only a black and white picture or sometimes colored picture or video.
- Now is the time to start: Do you think often you could have achieved a lot if only you went to a particular school or you lived in a different neighborhood or your life would have been wonderful if only you married that boy. Put the past behind. Just take a deep breath and start working on that idea that you always wanted to explore.
- Keep a record book or diary: This helps in noting down where you started and where you are right now. If you look closely — each one of us starts at zero.
- Understand that past (is not equal to) future: If you were hurt by some friends in the past then it does not mean that you will get hurt again whenever you make friends. Do not be judgmental about things. If you want to act smart then use commonsense to take some time to trust.
- Zero is fun: it is great to have a clean slate. When you start from scratch then you can write a brand new story and create a brand new life for you. You have nothing imperfect to pull you down. You can create magic. Now you also have learning from past to guide you.
- Every day is a new day: and the first day of your rest of your life. Think about it – when you came into this world, you could not talk, recognize people; slowly you started crawling, walking and then running. Similarly everyday you have chance to move on and build on your past.
Now you have read enough, time to get into action mode. Pick you takeaways, get out of your past if not already and create a new life that you deserve on a clean canvas called life.
