Past Affecting Present

Mark Twain, one of our greatest American writers, was quoted as saying, “Happy is he who forgets (ignores?) what cannot be changed.” Mark Twain, or by the real name Samuel Clemens, lived from 1835-1910. Not really all that long ago, but his simple statement has long lasting meaning. He realized that people must release the portions of their life which are outside of their control. Happy people do not worry about the issues which are set in stone or unchangeable from their perspective. Focus upon these issues can only lead to stress and unhappiness because no matter how much effort exacted upon them, the conclusion is the same.

One simple example of this mindset involves our past history. Try as we might to wish things were different in our pasts, we cannot ever change the results. We can learn from our past, but other than experience and memory, they are set in stone. The past is the epitome of what cannot be changed. So why are so many of us wrapped up in the past? Wrapped up in the past of who we were? Wrapped up in the past of the wrong decisions we made? Wrapped up in the past decisions our government made? The list could go on forever. Everyone has a closet full of wishes that would result in changes of past history. Entire countries look back and wish about what might have been.

Nothing good can come out of all this. Yes, we can learn from our mistakes as we should analyze what went wrong so we can take the lessons forward. But, we cannot continually harp and worry about the past as it will destroy our present. As Twain suggests, we must forget and potentially ignore what cannot be changed. Our past is the example of “what.” Do you have anything in your present which is being affected by your holding on to the past? I’m sure most of us do. Human nature is to hold on to things. Letting go is one of the toughest decisions we must all make throughout our life. It could be something small in relation to everything around us, but major to the individual. It could also be something life changing which we hold on to that completely clouds our decision making and living in the present. Some things create such an impact in our lives that we cannot seem to release its hold from our present and future life.

What happens when such things happen and rule our present? We allow our past to define our present self along with our future. Our past is the single most unchanging event we can possibly know other than death. Once that fleeting moment of time has passed before our eyes, we can no longer alter the course of what has happened. Why should we allow the past to control our daily life and future? Let go, forget, and ignore. Allow the past to become the past and a part of who we are. Learn from it, but leave it behind.

It becomes a mindset. Live for the now and the future and leave your past as the part of your life which helped build you into the person you are now. At this very moment, you can choose to release your attention to what was and begin focusing on what will be. What will or can be in the future could possibly never happen if your eyes are looking the other direction. Our lives are going in a million different directions, but backwards shouldn’t be one of them. Too many of us are treading water with who we were as the definition of who we are. We are focusing on our past decisions without paying attention to our daily decisions. We have allowed past mistakes as individuals, society, and government destroy what happiness we could experience in the future.

Everyone likes to look at the facts of the present and apply them to the past. It’s easy because we all appear to be geniuses. We make mistakes because we never have complete information available to us. We are only making the best educated “guess” at any given time. Yes, most decisions are guesses as we hope our decision leads us to the best possible outcome given the circumstances and knowledge at hand. This simple standard of decision making applies to all of us as individuals, societies, and entire countries. We do the best we can.

Sometimes things don’t work out the way we wanted. Things go bad and decidedly in the wrong direction no matter how hard we try to steer it right. Should the past overwhelm us and destroy our ability to move forward? No. We must take the opportunity to remove focus from what went wrong and focus on what we can do right. We can all take this advice to heart and apply it to our lives, our jobs, and our country. Live life moving forward, forget about the unchangeable past. The past will always be a part of us and we can learn from it, but we must never allow it to define us.

How would our country’s society be affected if our political parties weren’t always focused upon the past of everyone else but themselves? Rather than looking backwards at a past which they cannot change, they should be focusing on leading our nation forward. The past plays too big of a role in our politics and government today. If something is wrong, fix it, move forward, and forget about it. But, if we as individuals fail to let go of the past, how can we expect our country to move forward?

It all starts with you, the person reading this. Each of us can choose to allow the past to be the past and move forward. The future and now contains happiness, the past is a memory. Remove the stranglehold your past has on you and let go. Our future awaits us… all of us.