As I write this I am in the middle stages of a 100 day, 7,000 mile motorhome trip across the western states.
My goal is to revisit those cities where I played during my professional baseball career. Obviously, I will visit many great sights and locations on this trip, as well.
Going back into the past reminds me that it is easy to look back at yesterday and the days before that and say, "If I had only…," isn’t it? But where will it get us?
We know that we can't go back in time. We know that we can't live our “yesterdays” again. But there is a tendency for some to still try, isn’t there?
If there ever was a mental challenge that confronts some of us, it is in making peace with the past. We have a tough time forgetting what has gone before. We spend too much of the best day of our lives - today - recycling “yesterdays.”
We keep bringing up what might have been or what should have been as if by replaying it enough we can change the outcome.
But the more we replay yesterday, the further away from today's opportunities we get. And the further away we get, the tougher it is to move forward.
It is important for us to understand that yesterday is always with us, leaving its legacy--for better or worse–scattered all over the road behind us.
We need to be thankful and grateful for how something was beneficial to our past efforts.
We need to be appreciative of what we have. But if now is the time to “let go” of something, we should mentally prepare ourselves to move on.
The trick is to know what to take from past while we are heading toward the future.
Those past experiences encompass wisdom and livable lessons that can be used to take root in life today, don’t they?
It takes many gray hairs for some of us to understand that yesterday is a friend only in the sense of what we can learn from it.
One thing I have come to realize is that yesterday may be a great place to visit, but it’s kind of a miserable place to live.
It is my firm belief that our strength always lies in the present. What has happened has happened.
We know we cannot undo the past no matter how hard we try, don’t we? But letting go is not easy, is it?
No doubt, some of us find it difficult to wipe the slate clean and go on to what’s next because we can’t get beyond our past.
But the ability to move on is imperative if we wish to fullfill our dreams…and our bucket list.
We can bear up under the challenges of the moment, but it’s unbearable to carry yesterday’s regrets and tomorrow’s doubts at the same time.
That’s a lot of weight even for the strongest of us. Shouldn’t our focus be on today? Then we don’t spend time thinking, “If I had only…”
