Living In the Past

Living in the past is not a good thing. This doesn’t mean that we pretend the past didn’t happen. It means that we don’t stop moving forward. We are living in a time where many people are trying to return to the past. This is not good as a nation and certainly not as individuals. 

Living in the Past
 
Living in the past is a recipe for disaster.
If it is full of negatives, that same mindset
finds its way into the life you live in the present.
If it’s full of positives and you choose to live there,
it inhibits your ambition and your creativity now.
 
Living in the past tends to pull you like a magnet
into a world that played its part in all those lives,
a part meant to offer opportunities for rising above
the struggles designed to make you stronger.
Life is about change, and change requires overcoming.
 
Progress isn’t about retaliation, reprisal, or reparation.
It is about learning as individuals and nations
from our mistakes of the past so we don’t keep
creating the same circumstances in our present.
How? By not investing all our energies into the past.
 
As long as we live in the past, fighting for justice
for past wrongs, we don’t create balanced solutions,
solutions that will lead to peace and understanding.
Our intensity creates new imbalances with which to deal.
Focusing on the negative past will never solve anything.
 
Even for those whose pasts seem to be enviable,
living there denies them creativity needed to draw
from their past experiences and move forward.
Creativity increases as one learns from experiences.
Reliving past success does not lead to more success.
 
Progress can only be made if the gifts offered
by living are used to improve oneself and 
all humankind for we’re all connected in spirit.
Emotions like anger and retribution only serve
to keep the world in continual states of imbalance.
 
Living in the past often leads to fear of the future
along with other negative attitudes and approaches,
which don’t bring solutions, only more problems.
The true gifts of the past are there if we open our hearts
and choose to use it to create a better future for all.
 
 
©DWilliamsen