We Should Already Know
It is difficult to move forward when we feel that there are weights holding us down, pulling us back. It is agonizing to think that no matter how much you want to move forward, you feel that you can’t. It hurts too much to lift any part of our body to keep going. It feels better to just surrender to the aches and pains attacking the very bones holding us together, compressing our lungs to a point where breathing just becomes ignored, taken for granted because we assume had we stopped breathing, we would cease to exist. Exist we do. Thus, breathing must still be in effect.
Rewind. Reread the previous paragraph. In my last article, Have the Happiest New Year Yet, the second “p” for the acrostic was, “Please don’t give yourself excuses to waste another year.” Yes. Being taken down or just getting kicked (hard) hurts not just physically, but all around, the pain is silently ego-breaking which butchers the pride. This is what you need to tell yourself before another year just passes you by- get over it, get up, and be out of that feeling already. The only person to suffer is you. You cannot suffer from your past. Your future needs you strong- heart, mind, body, and spirit.
A moving target gains more attention and provides greater gratification for the hunter to take down. The more light you illuminate, the easier for others to take note of your existence. Sadly, the darker the opposition, the more spite one holds for your light. Accept this. Understand this. Not in vein, but in truth, for your own strength to break loose from any chain someone may have put upon you, but you alone have made the ultimate decision to hold you down.
The past is just that- the past. The word itself suggests “gone by in time and no longer existing“. Did it happen? Yes. Can we learn from it? Yes. Do we have to repeat it? Only if we let it.
Defeated? Let down? Broken? Says who? Says only the voice you listen to. The following serves to remind you that while the past may have left scars or bruises, dare not to let them define you.
It’s not over.
This by far is the most important message to tell the mind. If you are still living, then, go with that and do what you hold the power to do- live well. Perspective holds the difference between one feeling blessed to one feeling cursed. Losing a job could mean a new direction or path for one or the end to someone else. Having someone walk away could be seen as one now having an opportunity to go another direction or instead, one chasing back what left them behind. Seeing an end could mean a new beginning or one who doesn’t want to move on. How you want to see something is the only difference between accepting that the end has arrived or stating that it’s not over and the best is yet to happen. Choosing the latter is under your command.
Focus on today.
Making tomorrow better starts now. Look too far ahead and the finished work looks unreachable. The mind understandably can fold by just thinking about how many steps it would take to get to a finish line. Telling someone to lose a hundred pounds seems so insane. Work to lose a pound at a time seems more reachable. Both, however, can arrive to a hundred. One is trying to leap, while the other is just trying to take one milestone step at a time. Focus on what you can and will do today. Tomorrow will arrive, but if you haven’t taken any step forward today, your tomorrow will still be today. No movement now. No change tomorrow.
Hate is poison.
Surround yourself with darkness and what do you get? Jump into fire and what can you presume? Fall into a pit and which way will you go? Head toward the direction of the waterfall and what will become of your journey? Like the human made chemical nerve agent, sarin, colorless, odorless, and tasteless, short-term exposure could cause minor or temporary damage. Long-term exposure, however, could mean your life. While one may believe to be in an environment which can be controlled, being weary of what can affectively influence your way of thinking and feeling could lead to one’s demise.
Fear leads to ignorance.
Assuming is a shortcut to really knowing. Still, we will take risks in making assumptions than getting to come any closer to the unknown. Why have you not taken a chance at a new way of thinking, doing, or feeling can only truly be accepted as an underlying state of fear. Dare not go any further or venture into the unknown is that hesitation of not knowing what’s on the other side of the possibilities. Hence, the safety net of not making attempts to try and find out is purely an invisible shield subconsciously made by no other than the cowering and perhaps, trembling, spirit from within. Better to not take the chance of ever knowing what could be leads to “lack of knowledge or information” from what could be. Ignorance is what that definitively denotes. Ignorance is bliss?
Knowledge is power.
In opposition to not knowing, there is that pure desire, ache, wanting and drive to gain wisdom. While such level may take time to fully acquire or arrive to, the repertoire being built within one’s scope of understanding only takes the hunger to be fed with one theoretical fact after another. What happens to those who know more than you? How does one to be directed into truth become undeniably convinced? How can words create closure and clarity to a point where one or even a roomful of savants would find silence to be their best choice? To know more is to simply build the tower of confidence within. Like countries spending endlessly to create stronger military fortification, one’s mind must be served as a priceless chamber. What you fill it will be the difference between a commonwealth grave to King Tutankhamen’s mind-blowing sarcophagus.
Looking back does not and should not ever entail falling back. Necessarily, one looks back at yesterday to suggest how to create a better tomorrow. What stands between the two is that gift given to each of us to cherish, the present.
Careful. A given present may be fragile. Handle with care.
