It All Goes On

This saying is true. As I was looking at my little cousin's (actually my little third cousin, but that sounds ridiculous) pictures from Homecoming, I thought to myself, "Wow, do people really go to homecoming anymore?" As if the ritual ceased to exist just because the ritual ceased to exist for me. As if the world stopped having homecoming dances just because I had celebrated my final dance five years ago, and completed my college education. As if the idea that I am growing up was just too much for any of the almighty Gods of dance to handle, and therefore, they were forced to shut down the whole tradition. Who do I think I am?

But really, who do any of us think we are? We all have points in our lives where we expect time to stop. This was a sort of silly moment when I realized my subconscious was being haughty and dumb...But what about the moments where we are conscious of it, and allow ourselves to go on thinking that the past knew better than the present? That if we had just stayed in that one moment, that all the pain, all the disappointments*, that all of the lessons we needed to learn in order to be a more advanced soul, were foolish, and that if we could get back to that moment, then life would be smooth sailing. Well this is, of course, ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as 'my little third cousin' sounds, but not quite...Although it would be an incredible band name.

It is ridiculous for a number of reasons, but mostly, because we, including myself, tend to always idealize the past, especially if we're optimists. I, for one, can take almost any event out of my history and paint it into the most incredible, sensational, time of my life. A time so perfect that I thought I might burst with happiness at any moment. Now, when I truly examine the time, there were waves of absolute joy, disappointment, a little sadness, anger, laughter, hope and all of the other wonderful emotions that make us human. But this Poleana effect cannot go on forever, and likewise, if you are more on the pessimistic side, the idea that you can't overcome your past to make a better self today is equally destructive.

 Either way, you end up being trapped in the person you were, rather than the person you might be. You miss out on everything that could have come out of learning and moving on. New people, places, and opportunities disappear. They are gone all because you were too busy caught up in a person, place or opportunity that should have been gone a long time ago.

If something didn't happen, maybe it wasn't supposed to happen. Or if you are really feeling torn up about something or someone and you feel you didn't make the right decision about it, then either change your decision and make it right, or find a way to gain some sort of closure. We do not gain from regret, just as we do not gain from wallowing in past success. There are more successes to come and there are better decisions waiting to be made, if only we have the confidence to drive out of range and into the unknown.

The past is a familiar friend we can always fall back on. Always. That's just it, it will always be there. You cannot take it back. The future is infinite, and though there are limitless opportunities, you'll miss out on each last one of them if you can't escape the black hole of time gone by. This is your moment, if you see an opportunity, seize the day..Don't worry about what your plan was, change it. Don't worry about what the old you would have done, because the new you is too busy making awesome decisions. If there's an opportunity for growth, take it. I'll say another cliche, but really, "If not now, when?"

With this being said, I work very hard to be a person who does not let the past take over my life: I learned a while back that if you do this, you'll never move forward. Sure, I get sentimental or caught up from time to time, but I realize that I came here (to Earth) to be progressive and create. So did you! We all did. Eventually, this moving on thing, it gets to be second nature. As someone who is just finishing school, who is on the cusp of something, only God knows what, but I know it's something, it's easy to look back and say, "Wow, that was great, if only I could go back to that..." But instead, I am altering my self-speak to say, "Wow, that was great, now I have to hold myself up to that standard and higher."

The past is infinitely beneficial, but only if we learn from it, and move on. That's my point. Really that's what this whole, semi-elegant, semi-funny, semi-gramatically-correct blog is about. And that's how I feel about that.

Over and out,

Lolo

*As a side note: I pray for the day when I can actually spell "disappointment" without writing two s's and then realizing that it looks bad because it is wrong.