Out with the old...

I was having this really interesting conversation with another used by the name of @ziofeda (check him out!) and we got to talking about reflection on your past and how that might be good and bad for you at the same time. And it got me thinking and I figured I'd share a few thoughts here, as well.

It's actually something that I've been thinking about a lot lately, our tendency to focus too much on the past, on what happened a week, a month or a year ago. I honestly believe as humans, we have a tendency to blow things way out of proportion and that makes things seem way worse than they were. Well, that's true about some. Other things are indeed pretty bad.

But they're both in the past and the truth is, you won't accomplish much by focusing on either. Like with anything in life, I think it's crucial you find some sort of balance, that you think about your past only long enough to understand why you acted a certain way, why you made a certain choice etc. The past is a wealth of knowledge, but only as long as you don't understand the whys of it.

Think about it, understand it, and move on.

That's how I see it. No point wondering what your life would've looked like if you'd gone a different way.

a. Because you didn't.
b. Because you're probably wrong.

You have no way of knowing what an alternate version of you would look like, it's just optimistic guess-work. And while that may be fun/interesting and might even facilitate your wallowing, at the end of the day, it's just living in the past.

You know how they say the world is yours for the taking and it's full of opportunities and blah blah blah? Well, it's true. But you gotta have your eyes open to the world around, otherwise you miss them. It's not fair, but it is pretty simple.
Nothing new can come into your life if you're still pondering the old.

I know, it's a nice thought that someone will come yank you out of your mind, but you have to be realistic about things. That doesn't happen. Mainly because other people are caught trying to deal with their own shit. You gotta show at least some willingness and invite the new into your life, otherwise, it's just going to pass you by.

Will the new be as good as the old?

No. It will probably be nothing like the old, but it's not supposed to. It won't be as good as or worse than or whatever. It will just be different.