The Past

"We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice."

 - Stephen Covey

Waking up in the morning can be a really grueling thing to do sometimes. You open your eyes at almost the same time as you do every day; its a routine to you now after doing it since the day you were born. Plus you have this mysterious biological clock inside you that all these womens magazine keeps talking about in their every other article. Your whole body feels heavy after the nice rest it has had all night, and now is gearing up for another busy day ahead. Some days you wake up abruptly from a nice dream and you try hard to recall what the whole thing was about, but you find it hard to do. Some days you wake up thinking about the same things you were thinking of when you went off to sleep, mostly some romantic tryst with someone special to you. People might spend their whole day gossiping and throwing hatred at everybody around them, but they always end up thinking of loved ones before dozing off. Somebody from both past or present, or even someone they wish to have in their lives in the near future. 

Reminiscing in such thoughts is such a wonderful feeling in the first few waking minutes. Not always though. Some days you wake up to something not so pleasant. You have a lousy dream. Or even someone around you talking to somebody else and tidbits of their conversation leads you to recall some part of your past that you really are trying very hard to block out and keep trying desperately not think of. But now after listening to these conversations it is inside your head, and there is no escaping it. You end up thinking about these unpleasant moments in your life of which you’re too proud of, your utmost low point. Now you have no choice but to spend those first few glorious lazy minutes of the day stuck in your not-so-glorious past. That is so not the way anybody wants to start off their day. 

Human beings are the most blessed, and probably the most cursed, one of nature’s children. And the reason for both is the same, the strength of our minds or rather more specifically our ability to remember and feel. A stray dog might not recognize the kind old lady that had given it some bread to eat when it was hungry last winter and will run away from her when she comes to pet it a few months later, but it will always remember to pee in the self same spots without fail like clockwork to mark his territory. Thats mostly due to its brain is hard-wired to sticking to a routine, than to remembering any seemingly non-consequential data about some withered old member of another species. Sometimes I feel they are so lucky. They do not have to remember anything from the past or deal with the emotions created as a consequence of remembering them. They don’t have to feel guilt, shame, anger, frustration, angst or sorrow. All they really need to worry about in life are the three basics for their existence – food to exist, shelter their hide from the harsh weathers and sniffing each others’s butts. 

We on the other hand are not that fortunate. We remember. Each of our actions, reactions, feelings etc is all locked away in the seemingly endless recesses of memory space inside our head. And our memories are capable of bringing out a wide array emotions like joy, sorrow, content, angst, anger, peace, guilt or just the plain old dreadful nagging feeling called regret. All these feelings can be dealt with; once you’ve spent it all out of your system, it is over and done. You just need someone to blame it all on. The people around you, the cat, the dog, and the stupid lazy lady down the street, or the all time favorite, the government. Most of them just need a little venting off, and time. Then poof, it’s gone. 

But that last emotion is a killer. You can spend your whole life trying to make up for something that has already happened, but you never really get over the regret. It is the most vicious of human emotions, and once it gets into your head there is nothing you can do to get it out. Men, no matter who or where they are, always seem to find something their past that will torment them for the rest of their life. A spoken word, an action or even inaction by us or someone else's at some point of time in our life; that led to some undesirable results that caused a world of pain for us or more importantly the loved ones around us. We sometimes find a way to deal with that result physically in the real world, the wound may heal but the scar made by that incident on our minds never heals. 

You spend many a sleepless nights tossing and turning. Doing and redoing your past inside your head, trying to find some alternate path that you should have chosen that might have changed the outcome of whatever that had happened back then. Trying very hard to find a way out of the regret. You never get over the thought that if you had done things differently, things would have been a lot more different from what it is now. But no matter how hard you try to make sense of it all, it would never be enough for your selfish mind. It will constantly drag you deeper and deeper into the swamp of guilt and your own self worthlessness. Your own conscience becomes your enemy. It makes you the victim, and as well as the culprit. You will feel remorse, and a lot more guilt for what had happened. And you take this baggage wherever you go, whatever you do. You never let go of it. It chains you down, you keep coming back to it every time you have to make any important decision in life. That one mistake that you had done a long time ago now is the master of your fate, it moulds your life, it takes control of you. All your future actions evolve from this one day in your past. 

Maybe what they say is true. Maybe its a good thing. A man is only as wise as his experiences. He learns from them and each of these is a building block for his personality, and perception towards the world. If he has gone through a rough patch in his life and has made mistakes in his past, he should be able to learn from those mistakes and be able to implement these lessons learnt, to make his future more secure and error-free. You have this one day in your past that you can come back to and learn from, and be wiser by it. To make knowledgeable smart decisions in your life ahead so that you never make the same mistake again. Ensure that history never repeats itself at least in your case. That does sound rational. Wish it were that simple. 

We rarely have that pleasure of understanding all of life’s unfathomable complexities. They say we have all the answers within us, buried someplace deep waiting for us to deep just a bit deeper. But we never really get there do we? We just keep gnawing away at our own peace of mind. Be it good or bad, human beings have a habit to keep that door half ajar all the time and make it a point to peek into those days gone by now and then. If it is good we keep comparing it to the life that we lead in the present and get hopelessly disappointed at it and prefer day dreaming about the good old days. If the past was bad, we still think of them and relive their horror each day fearing those dark days might return some day to torment us again. Keep returning to that same spot in our past, again and again.

Our past haunts us. Our life becomes a wreck. Our each waking moment we spend living in the days that have already passed us by. And in that process we miss out on the joys of today and mess up things for us that might be going our way right now. Our blind fear and cowardice make us lose all hope that there actually might be something good for us in this life. And this nervousness to actually start living our life and let go of the fear makes us limit ourselves to a shackled limited living. This in turn prevents us from getting outside our comfort zone, living a mediocre life. This only makes us doubt our own self worth. We feel minuscule in the grand landscape of life of the fortunate people around us.

Life is the best gift we have ever received. Yes, it really does mess with your head sometimes with its complexities, and hurt you immeasurably and destroy your morale. But still, look at the wonderful life that you have outside of those few moments of failure. Being all happy happy doesn't mean you've perfect life. It just means you've decided to look beyond the imperfections, and live contently with what you have. Because no matter what you have and no matter how less you think it all compares to the seemingly fortunate people around you, there is someone else out there in this planet who’s got it worse than you but still has the courage to wake up the next day and put on a brave face to face the world. If he can find the guts to do it, surely you must too. No person who has ever lived on this planet has yet been able to define or been able to neither live ‘the perfect life’, nor will anyone will ever be able to. There are thorns and skeletons in everybody’s life. But they only are there for you to know the true beauty of the roses amongst those thorns. Acknowledge the thorns, but always be able to adore the roses.

Your life is beautiful. Your life is blessed. You have so many wonderful people around you. You are blessed to have so many lovely people around you who care for you no matter what. No matter how messed up your life is, no matter what you have done or haven’t done, I can guarantee you this much – the ones who love you truly, especially your family, will always be there with you. They can never ever see you in hurt, and will never ever be a reason for your sorrow. Trust in them completely, show them that you love them in any little way that you can. Though some of them might not be able to show how much they love you, always know in your heart that they love you and always will. You are an amazing person. You are unique. You are the only version of yourself, so make this one the best.

Let your past guide you to the right path, but don’t let it dictate your life. Live your life to the fullest you can. Make a promise to yourself to treat yourself the best that you can, with all the gifts that have been showered on to you by nature. And stick to this promise for the rest of your amazing time on this beautiful planet. Your life is amazing. It is for you to decide what to make of it. And swear by all that you hold holy, that you will make something worthwhile of your time on this planet. You are the master of your own destiny. Live your life when you can, and let bygones be bygones.

Love all, laugh lots and live life abundantly!

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