Are You Focusing on the Future?

They say “God never closes a door without opening a window” however it can be challenging to rid yourself of feelings of anger or regret that a situation has not worked out to your liking well enough to see a new opportunity for what it is — a gift.

How often do we waste time lamenting and regretting that something in our lives has come to an end — only to realize later what a waste of time that was?

How often do we tell ourselves that nothing will ever replace the job, or relationship that just ended, or the house that we just moved from, only to realize a year later how much better off we are now that we are free of that same situation?

You would think that we would embrace the prospect of moving forward with the anticipation and excitement of adventures yet to be — and sometimes we do — but often all we feel is a sense of loss.

What is it about experiencing good fortune in life, or career, or family, that makes us fearful that it will all come to a crashing end and that we will never be as happy again?

It’s just plain irrational — particularly when you consider the fact that a measurable contingent of people don’t appreciate what they have in the first place until it’s gone.

And to make matters worse — we don’t just heap this nonsense on ourselves, we bring this self-destructive negativity to the fore everywhere we go, inflicting our naysayer attitude on everyone we encounter, erroneously thinking that we can somehow protect ourselves from experiencing the woes of the past over again by limiting our opportunities to succeed in the future.

And the more we self-protect, the more tightly we lock ourselves into a self-limiting cycle that we repeat over and over again.

In the beginning this actually feels safer than leaving ourselves exposed to the risk of more pain and we congratulate ourselves for our cleverness.

But ironically as we move forward (or perhaps I should say sink backward) along this path, we slowly shut out the light and with it the people — and places — and things we love most by constantly reliving the sting of past difficulties to the point that they cloud our judgement in the present moment.

Let me be clear — there is no point in analyzing events that have already taken place in order to re-write, or re-live, the situation. It is past.

Full stop. Period. End of Discussion.

The biggest lie we tell ourselves is that there are exceptions to this.

What’s done is done as they say — and any attempt to tell yourself otherwise is simply an attempt to trick yourself into reliving an illusion — instead of living in the now and experiencing life to the fullest.

The question is — are you ready to finally accept this?

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If you missed last week’s article on “The Problem with Birthdays” click here to watch now: https://youtu.be/eAVKPF--lT0