Move away from the past and design a new future

Move away from the past and design a new future


Life happens in now. Most of us are familiar with that statement. However, living in the present is one of the toughest disciplines. We either live in the past or in the future.

Our life is a treasure of memories of events, people who have shaped our life. Life gets shaped with every event and with every interaction. Our parents play the most significant influence on our personality. Admiration and compassion is the basic need of humanity. Every word or gesture defines our thought process and adds to our interpretation of life around us.

There is an abundance of opportunities that surround us. We invariably overlook them because we are too focused on the constraints of the past and carry the same into the future. Nature is a perfect example of abundance – oceans, grasslands, animals, wealth and natural reserves. Like life, natural reserves are distributed in different proportions across the world.

A poor person often ends up spending his whole life working towards making ends meet because he lives in the vicious cycle of - I am poor and that is my past, present and future reality. Our creativity towards a new future gets blocked because we look backwards. We get stuck in the past. It’s like driving a car by holding the rear view mirror instead of the steering wheel.

The more we focus on the rejections, failures, incompletion; the more we lose sight of our vision. More often than not, when we perceive any comment or incident as negative, that’s it – life comes to a grinding halt in that moment and the incident is filed safely into our memory bank for referral. Each time we encounter a similar comment, we refer to our memory bank and add the file to the folders we create for similar events, people and relationships. We then live our life on the basis of those files that are possibly outdated. Not only do we forget to update those files, we don’t even give ourselves a chance because it is easier to use the familiar data rather than study new data. We impact our own growth as well as that of others around us.

To live powerfully, we need to be in control of our reaction to our circumstances and not allow our circumstances to control us. We have an inherent capacity to create our own future yet we allow circumstances to design our life. Your current circumstances are yours. How you react to them is up to YOU.
An American philosopher, Mr William James noted that, “The greatest discovery of our generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind. As you think, so shall you be.”
“The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne is one such example that sufficiently illustrates the “Law of Attraction”. If we believe tomorrow will be better, it usually is better.
For instance, many years ago, Mahatma Gandhi believed in Independent India and made Freedom the mission of his life. Freedom was the mantra of the Indians pre-independence and therefore, Freedom is what we attracted and achieved.


Then what is it that prevents us from moving away from the past and creating a new future. I believe that there is a devil that inhabits in every human being’s mind. I call it the Devil because it makes us behave like Dr Jykle and Mr Hyde. When we feel safe, we are full of love and calm and the minute we feel threatened, we show signs of anger, frustration, self-doubt, righteousness, insecurity etc. The minute we think we are being proven wrong or let down, the in-built protective mechanism is thrown between us and the rest of the world.

For instance, we expect our child to be the best at academics and every possible extra curricular activity and above all at those subjects that we perceive as appropriate for survival in the world. The pressure of performance is built up from the day the child is born. Every milestone such as sitting, crawling, walking, talking etc is constantly measured with world standards. Gradually, the child builds barriers due to fears of rejection, failure, incompetence in his mind. This is the birth of our personal Devil. The survival instinct causes that child to build a personal shield in the form of anger, righteousness, stubbornness, resignation, etc.

The power of the mind amazes me. The same mind can conquer the world or defeat oneself. This depends upon the discipline and perspective one chooses to exercise. Therefore, understanding and then accepting the role and impact of your own devil is important. It is not easy to conquer it because it requires confronting the self image (“persona or mask”) that we have constructed over the years.
Our world is no different from that of many others. Every human being is a composition of thoughts and emotions. All of us feel, think, breathe, eat and do similar bodily actions. And, all human beings aspire for peace and happiness. Yet we distance ourselves from each other in an attempt to protect ourselves. Who are we trying to protect ourselves from – I, myself and me. That’s the irony of life. We live our life shielding ourselves from looking into the mirror.
We listen more frequently to the voice of the Devil because that prevents us from “perceivably” getting hurt. The more we listen to that self created Devil, the more distance we create from that little inner voice which tries to resurface time and again. That Devil is our ego. That little voice is our conscience or the voice of truth. In every moment we can chose to befriend either our ego or the voice of truth. Both paths require courage – to deceive you or deceive others. Sadly (and often unknowingly), we often chose to deceive ourselves to satisfy others.
What makes us deceive ourselves? I believe the biggest gap in our life is that we don’t trust in our own Goodness. Every human being is born with goodness. The birth of a child brings happiness and joy in its family. There is cheer and celebration for the new life, for the light of hope, for the fulfillment of dreams and for that continuity of humanity.

What happens as we grow up – we start questioning the love of our parents? We keep looking for that unconditional love that accepts us for who we are. We misunderstand and doubt their aspirations, their fears, their love to see us happy, their love to see us safe, their love to see us successful, their love to see us fulfill their dreams. We interpret all of that as incompleteness in ourselves and imperfection in the relationship. We forget that our parents are first human beings and then a father or mother. They too have a baggage of interpretations, fears, doubts and past. This baggage subconsciously gets passed onto the children because of the high intensity of interaction and protectiveness.

When we see ourselves as incomplete, we focus on constantly filling that gap. To achieve perfection, we focus on our beauty, intelligence, financial status, skills, talents and other attributes. Slowly but surely, we tarnish that perfection because we are too busy filing that perceivable gap.

We forget to use that gift. We forget to nurture that light. We curb our outflow of goodness because of lack of faith. We constantly look for validation from our school teachers, friends, siblings, colleagues, boss and so on. We behave in different ways to receive acknowledgement - competitively, aggressively, rebelliously, domineering or popularly.

If we cannot trust ourselves, how can we trust others or expect others to trust us. Confidence in one’s goodness is what allows us to freely enjoy and nurture the goodness in others. I always understood trust as sharing your feelings and thoughts with others. Trust is what allows us to have meaningful relationships with other people.

The enormity of the word “Trust” is far higher – it not only means trusting in others to the extent of establishing relationships but above all trusting in yourself. It is that trust in one’s abilities that enables us to succeed and contribute. It enables us to support others to grow and contribute in the world. It allows ME to enjoy and love ME.

If we look at nature, no animal, no plant, no water body is equal in size. Nature in its every form, color, shape and size contributes uniquely to the beauty of the world. Similarly, we are born in different shapes, sizes, colors and homes. We all have a responsibility to contribute from our uniqueness and make a difference in our domain. The world is inter-connected; you too can be a part of contributing to world peace.

Eleanor Roosevelt said, “When you cease to make a contribution, you begin to die.”