What Once Was…Ain’t No
More…
The above title has been
designed intentionally to annoy the English teachers of the world – and come to
think of it, everyone else who insists that it is nothing less than a sin
against Mankind to use anything less than “proper, acceptable” English –
ever. Having said that and subsequently
feeling much better about life in general (it never takes much to perk me up…),
I’d also like to express my sincere appreciation to all you folks who have
somehow managed to keep our English (or American, if you will) language from
completely deteriorating into one giant heap of linguistic compost. Of course, that will never prevent me from
tossing rotting potato peelings on the pile from time to time.
Where were we? Oh, yes – what once was… Rather than beat around the bush and try to
lead into this in a semi-logical manner, I’ll get right to the point. The past is gone – vanished, disappeared in a cloud of dust and a hearty “Hi,
Ho Silver!” It is history, not real,
mental vapor, and gone, gone, gone!
“Yabutt…”
“Yabutt” nothing. The past is gone! OK, I do understand that a bunch of stuff has happened before now
to influence what “now” is. And sometimes
it’s good to take a look at the past to see just how the heck we got to our
“now”. With a little luck, the record
of the past will not have been so over-skewed by our individual and collective
perceptions that we will be limited in our ability to make current rational
decisions.
Well, so much for luck! We do change the past, don’t we? We remember what we think we remember, then
we shade it slightly with our current situation or viewpoint of life and the
events surrounding us (is this a reprogramming thing?) – and remember the past
as we think it should be remembered. The
really good things that have happened just keep getting better and better. Unfortunately, the bad things have a
tendency to get worse and worse.
Since I’m into “positives” -
even exaggerated ones - I’m going to give myself permission to remember the good
stuff in any absolutely wonderful way I want.
Shucks, I may even extrapolate a bit and push some of these fantastic
memories right into Fantasyland – for just a few minutes, that is. Then I’ll come back to reality…maybe…
As far as the bad stuff is
concerned – well, I think I’ll handle those a bit differently. Let’s see now…bad stuff…hmmm, I can’t
remember anything particularly bad. Oh
wait, there was that time I…no, that wasn’t all that bad… Ok, how about the
time…no, that wasn’t actually bad…
What I do remember though,
are a bunch of times that were darned uncomfortable! Times that I used poor information and/or logic to reach a
decision – or times that I had to do things that I really didn’t want to do
(commonly because I had done something goofy previously to put me in an
uncomfortable situation). Or times that
I might have acted too impulsively – or even the times that something happened
that was out of my control (a stuff happens thing). Nah, I can’t remember all the details of this stuff. I just have a general recollection of the
events – and of some of the things I did to rectify the situation or changes I
made in the way I was thinking and conducting my life.
Get the idea? Of course you do. Too many of us have a tendency to live in the past. We remember events and situations as
“bad”. Our minds automatically fill in
the missing details with exaggerated “facts”.
We relive those bad moments complete with every associated emotion we
can conjure up. We are sad, depressed
and sometimes flat miserable. We resort
to medications (and other readily available related alternatives) to relieve
the pain. Life just sucks!
The past is not real,
folks! It is gone! The only way it becomes “real” is by
allowing our minds to push it into the forefront of our thoughts. What has happened – has happened. We can’t change it even though at times we
may desperately want to. The only reality
is now! Our past has brought us here – to our “now”. “Now” is the only time we can do stuff –
not yesterday, not tomorrow –only now.
You might think about using
some of your “now” to put the past to rest.
Look for the lessons those uncomfortable events might hold for you. What can you learn from those situations
that will help make your life easier on down the road? Turning “bad” events into lessons will help
move them further back in the mental file cabinet. Apologies where appropriate and forgiveness of both yourself and
others as necessary can be a couple of other useful tools to diminish the
impact and the nagging of the memories of the past. Handing the negative memories over to your personal spiritual
“leader” is often useful. (You’ll
probably still need to do something in addition though.) Also, focusing on the positives of the past
will help to lessen the impact of the negatives.
If your “now” is pretty
sucky, all you can do is deal with it the best way you know how. If you can find an immediate lesson in the
situation – great! If you don’t see
one, you may have to wait for a later “now” when you can see a bit more
clearly. Life’s like that. Just remember that it won’t be long until
this “now” is gone. I think that’s one
of those “This too shall pass” things.
The past? Remember the cool stuff and as for the rest of the garbage – LET IT GO!!!
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