Don’t Let Yesterday Use Up Too Much of Today
Cherokee Proverb
It’s easy to do, huh?
There are plenty of reasons we get stuck in the quicksand of yesterday.
We don’t have much going on in the present. We’re bored. Maybe there’s a past hurt we can’t let go, a traumatic event that feels like it’s embedded in our being, or a longing for a do-over. Perhaps it’s like enjoying a favorite movie. We want to replay a delightful time in life, reliving every detail because it makes us feel good, or we use it as an escape from a not-so-fun present.
Before you know it another today has become another yesterday, piled onto the mountain of yesterdays. Perhaps some of those yesterdays have taught us a thing or two, but often times it’s just a mountain best left alone. After all, what’s the purpose of climbing a pile of nothing we can’t do anything about? No changing what’s done is done. If our eyes are focused on that memory heap, we miss the life of today…the joy, the beauty, the newness, the possibilities…awaiting to be discovered in every moment.
Which brings me to a friend who’s cheated death by 30+ times and counting. There were a few DD (death defying) moments attributed to his law enforcement career, but most involved living one of the most on-purpose, exciting, and over-the-top-full lives of anyone I’ve ever met. Rock climbing, spelunking, scuba diving, motorcycle riding, surfing, backpacking to remote areas. Now while most of us may not embrace or have the stomach for that kind of lifetime adventure, such an outlook can remind us that life is happening in front of us, not in our heads.
Being able to recall our past is a gift. However, it’s one thing to revisit times in our lives for whatever reason and quite another to continue to live there.
So, let’s get off the couch, unplug from the technology, and live a new story every day.