Yesterday does not have the power to determine today. If it did, we'd be powerless. Our collective well-being would be in the dumpster. There would be no innovation. Creativity and hope would be barren and childless. Much of our personal success would be non-existent.
By our very nature, however, we are filled with hope and possibility, creativity and life.
Lewis Carroll (pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) wrote of the ego's ability to keep us bound up by yesterday and yesterday's mistakes or difficulties. In Alice in Wonderland, the Queen with great insight, reminds the King of his power. "The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never forget." "You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it." How many of us pull out our chisels and stone and carve our mistakes and history upon the hard surface of our lives? We make it indelible so that it messes with our present moment, and thus our future. How many memos have you written? My ego LOVES it when I do this! "Bad, Lee Ann...Bad, bad, BAD!"
By our very nature, however, we are filled with hope and possibility, creativity and life.
Lewis Carroll (pseudonym for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) wrote of the ego's ability to keep us bound up by yesterday and yesterday's mistakes or difficulties. In Alice in Wonderland, the Queen with great insight, reminds the King of his power. "The horror of that moment," the King went on, "I shall never forget." "You will, though," the Queen said, "if you don't make a memorandum of it." How many of us pull out our chisels and stone and carve our mistakes and history upon the hard surface of our lives? We make it indelible so that it messes with our present moment, and thus our future. How many memos have you written? My ego LOVES it when I do this! "Bad, Lee Ann...Bad, bad, BAD!"
It's a real struggle sometimes to wake up with fresh eyes and thoughts, to take a broom to the cobwebs in my early morning brain. I think I've mentioned before that I'm an attorney and that it doesn't always feed my soul, though it puts food on the table and provides me with the ability to afford some pleasures in this life. What I've not mentioned, is that at present I am not practicing law as I had originally intended. Less than two years ago, I lost my favorite attorney work as the Executive Director of a legal pro bono non-profit that fed my soul, and have been doing "temporary-contract" work on big litigation cases in DC ever since. My early morning brain wakes in a fog and I sometimes fight the onset of my day with, "once upon a time, you were somebody..." Youza!!! OUCCCCCHHHHHHH!!...That's real helpful...NOT!
A better way to wake, is to wear the air of expectancy. Add a dash of wonder, possibility and mystery and days open up into glorious days and weeks. So instead of letting yesterday (or in my case, an event that two summers ago) define me and my present, I open to what is before me as a child going to the zoo or the beach for the first time. Remember the wonder and awe? Remember the excitement in the car ride to those new places? Remember the "not knowing" thrill of whatever is next? That's our today!
If we continue to look backwards at those yesterdays, we may miss the very gift that is right in front of us; in fact, while our backs are turned, we may bump into that gift, curse it and our clumsiness and then miss it entirely when we finally turn around again. How often do we fall all over ourselves when we aren't looking in front of us?
Turn, we must. Going forth with a sense of adventure is required. Welcoming the now is our only option for all that we want in our lives. It takes practice and a willingness to open, to be vulnerable, hopeful and expectant--but you can, just as I do. We don't know what today will bring, right? Pick up the penny in front of you and make a wish! Pretend that you don't know what incredible mystery and adventure is before you. (We grown-ups think we do know what is coming up, but we don't. We base it upon our yesterdays that are gone. Simply gone...)
Don't go fishing in yesterday. It's gone, friends!
Grab your pole! There's a new watering hole. Let's go find it, today! (Ta-daaaaa!)
A better way to wake, is to wear the air of expectancy. Add a dash of wonder, possibility and mystery and days open up into glorious days and weeks. So instead of letting yesterday (or in my case, an event that two summers ago) define me and my present, I open to what is before me as a child going to the zoo or the beach for the first time. Remember the wonder and awe? Remember the excitement in the car ride to those new places? Remember the "not knowing" thrill of whatever is next? That's our today!
If we continue to look backwards at those yesterdays, we may miss the very gift that is right in front of us; in fact, while our backs are turned, we may bump into that gift, curse it and our clumsiness and then miss it entirely when we finally turn around again. How often do we fall all over ourselves when we aren't looking in front of us?
Turn, we must. Going forth with a sense of adventure is required. Welcoming the now is our only option for all that we want in our lives. It takes practice and a willingness to open, to be vulnerable, hopeful and expectant--but you can, just as I do. We don't know what today will bring, right? Pick up the penny in front of you and make a wish! Pretend that you don't know what incredible mystery and adventure is before you. (We grown-ups think we do know what is coming up, but we don't. We base it upon our yesterdays that are gone. Simply gone...)
Don't go fishing in yesterday. It's gone, friends!
Grab your pole! There's a new watering hole. Let's go find it, today! (Ta-daaaaa!)
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