Yesterday
Do you ever find yourself re-living past mistakes? You know, something didn’t quite work out. You know and recognise that it’s your fault. So you keep on beating up on yourself.
You spend valuable time today re-living the past. Going over and over it in your mind.
“You idiot,” your mind shouts at you,”what possessed you to do that?”
I’ve found that it can even disturb your sleep. You find yourself lying awake in the middle of the night, playing it over and over in your mind, like a broken record.
So, how can you stop that little voice in your brain, pestering you day and night?
Today
Simple. Move on. It’s happened. It can’t UN-happen. Get on with today’s tasks.
However, maybe easier said than done.
I think one way to conquer this little gremlin is to learn from what happened.
First of all tell yourself, “O.K. I screwed up! Fair enough. No-one’s perfect. My job now is to LEARN from my mistake.”
Just let your logic and reason calm down your emotions. As we know, there’s always a hiden gem in every mistake. That’s the wonderful thing about it. You learn something new and important.
Just think of classic examples, like Edison and his light bulb. How many times did he find something that didn’t work? Hundreds! He never got depressed, moping about, beating up on himself every time it didn’t work.
He just moved on.
“O.K. That didn’t work. What else can I try?”
Little disagreements
I find that this “moving on” helps even in trivial little, day-to-day matters. My wife and I are debating about some issue. We disagree. We make our points firmly. Sometimes we feel so strongly about our point of view that we start to argue. We both hate arguing. I often say, trying to close down the arguing, “O.K. That’s history. Let’s agree to disagree, for the moment. Let’s move on.” And we do.
Even a minute ago can be seen as “history”! What’s been said’s been said. “Fine, let’s not waste any more time, energy and love repeating our own point of view.”
As Dan Millman points out in the quote, we waste energy keeping on and on about the past. We often experience that too, don’t we? We can feel a bit worn out after such a discussion.
Tomorrow
Much better to devote your remaining energy to creating something new, beautiful and useful. I’m reminded of the biblical saying, “Let the dead bury their dead.”
The past is dead and gone. Learn from it, yes. But then move on, and devote all your energy to today and tomorrow.
Yesterday’s already fading into the past. Next year, you won’t even remember it.
Why play around in the ashes of yesterday, when you can be creating the fire of tomorrow?
Gerry McCann
P.S Feel free to share this Quote with a friend.
