past

Looking back only slows you down

 Today has been one of those days where I know I want to write, but I am struggling to decide what to write about. So many topics are circling my mind. I feel led to write about prayers being answered & being able to view people without judgement. However, the reason for this is a very personal story that I am not sure I’m ready to share yet.

That being said, I believe I will write about something that crossed my mind last month. I saw a post today that sort of reminded me of this fleeting thought I’d had & I’d like to try to elaborate on it & see where I’m led. The original thought was:

Looking back only slows us down, giving those behind us a chance to catch up or even pass us.

Why do we waste so much time focused on what other people do & neglect our own work? If we put half as much effort into striving for our own goals as we do worrying about where others are on their journey, we would be miles ahead of where we are at. It is okay to examine, or study, the practice of another individual on a similar path to ours. There may in fact be things to be learned, tips to be shared. But we can not dwell on this for too long & forget to continue our own work. This gets us nowhere.

Same thing goes for living in the past. You cannot constantly relive your mistakes, or even triumphs, if you want to keep moving forward towards you goals. You must look past the finish line & focus on the prize. If you only direct your gaze to your end goal, you will surely slow down before you get there, as soon as you get it in sight. However, when you set your eyes beyond the finish line, you blow through it & continue on to bigger & better things. Don’t just stop when you reach one goal. As you get close to one, set a bigger goal, farther in the future.

The more time that is wasted looking back, or comparing your pace to others, the less time there is to be spent moving yourself forward. No two journeys are the same, though the paths may be similar. No time frame is right or wrong, but customized entirely by you. Don’t worry about your competitors or shame yourself for being slower than you’d like. Just focus on what you can control, put in the work, & look forward, past where you want to be. I’m sure you’ve heard the old phrase “Shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars.” This is yet another quote that I believe holds value. Dream big. Set realistic goals, but as you work towards them & they begin to come into sight, set a new one. Never stop growing, never stop improving. Never look back, or even around you. This will only slow you down, & while you are slowing down, your opponent, who has kept their eyes on the prize will be passing you. Keep your focus on your future. Reach for what you want. ❤

Archives are Important

The more we try to erase the past, the more we will see it in the future. Memories were created with a purpose. So we could learn from our previous mistakes. If we don’t remember what we did wrong we will continue to make the same mistakes over & over again & again. 

Today we live in a world where people strive to be politically correct. A world filled with hatred among humans & resentment for the past. Racial animosity & friction betwixt the genders are at an all time high. But, WHY?! We are all humans, we are all equal, we should all be treated the same, right? But, we aren’t. Here’s where I will sound negative for a second. The world ain’t fair, so deal with it! Not something you want to hear, is it? Of course not. But, it’s the truth. This leaves us sentient beings with two options. 1. To work as hard as we possibly can to achieve our goals, despite our birth bound setbacks, which may include having been enabled too often. 2. Blame others for not being treated the way you want to be treated.

I don’t even honestly feel the need to go into depth on option one as it seems pretty straightforward to me. The harder you work, the more you will achieve. Yet, there is this whole other side to that, which ties into option two. Why aren’t we working to create a world, in which everyone is treated equally? When we place blame on others, we are giving them the power to control our thoughts & feelings. This power is a right, which should remain your own. 

The solution is pretty simple, quit placing blame & instead strive to treat everyone as you wish to be treated yourself. This is, after all, the golden rule. If everyone treated each other as they wanted to be treated in return, the world would be a better place. So often this is said, but so rarely is this theory put into action. We get so distracted by placing blame, because it is the easy thing to do. It is a cop out, instead of accepting the responsibility that the reason you are not happy may actually have nothing to do with the color of your skin or which reproductive organs you have & may in fact be more about your own view of yourself. Do you see yourself as a success or a failure? Are you satisfied with who you are? 

Today is not the day I will talk about finding your own self worth, or how to love yourself. Today I am writing about possibly the biggest issue with our current society’s infatuation with the concept of political correctness. The issue with it is, the “blamers” would like to erase the past. First of all, let me point out. This is impossible! It cannot be done. The past is what it is, & it cannot be changed. Some dinosaur probably once pooped where you now eat. Don’t like it? Too bad! It is a fact. When we realize that the past is a fact, a statistic set in time, then we can begin to shape the future. Circling back to what I said in the first paragraph. Our brains were embedded with a recollection archive. A memory, a database whose files can be retrieved by their owner at any time. 

Just like our memories, historical records hold significance also. When a criminal gets a “record,” it is there so that people know how many times the criminal has done what wrong in attempt to prevent future occurrences. Why then is it important that history is remembered? To learn about things like wars & unethical treatment of humans by one group towards another—be it religion, race, gender, age, or any other reason—learning about these things is how we prevent them from reoccurring. A lot can be learned from any bad situation. & since the past has  already taken place, why not use it to learn from? Let’s learn from mistakes that have already been made & go forward avoiding making the same ones again. So back to the problem. These blame placers today just want to pretend like the past never happened. They want to remove artwork—original masterpieces, change flags, ban the pledge, avoid singing the national anthem or other lyrics, remove key events from text books, etc. All because these things are too “offensive.” What is offensive is that we have not used these historical mistakes to learn how to treat each other with kindness & respect. You would think by now we would have gotten the point! Yet, here we are. Just remember, the less history there is to learn from, the more likely those same issues will present themselves in the future, possibly even multiple times. ❤