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Today's
Meditation:
I honestly don't know where it comes from, but I seem
to have a natural predisposition to look ahead, and not
behind. I almost never think about the past--I focus
on what I need to do today and what I will be needing to
do tomorrow. What happened yesterday really doesn't
matter to me, except in the sense of learning from
it. If I did something that worked, I want to
remember it so that I can do it again. Likewise, if
I did something that didn't work or something really
stupid (which I do more often than I like to admit), I try
to remember it so that I don't repeat it.
I do know people who tend to spend their time looking
back, and I notice that most of them aren't living
up to their potential in anything. When we spend
much of our time focused on the past, we have much less
time to focus on the things that are in front of us right
here, right now. What we accomplish in life depends
upon how much time, effort, energy and focus we're able to
contribute to what we do--if those things are spent on the
past, over which we have absolutely no control, then
they're squandered and not applied to our current and/or
future needs.
There's a lot of value in our pasts. It's great to
look at old photos and reminisce. It's helpful to
think of past lessons when we're trying to determine a
present course of action. But when we do more than
that, when we spend too much time focused on that which
can't be changed or affected by our thoughts or actions,
then we're losing our ability to affect our present
situations in positive, loving, creative, and productive
ways. Life is to be lived now, and when our minds
are caught up in the past, their power can't be used to
affect today.
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