Past, Present or the Future – the best time to live in?

 

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past, if you are anxious, you are living in the future, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.” Lao Tzu

I created this image using Copilot AI

We humans are very compassionate and helpful creatures by nature. If you need examples, look at whenever disasters have struck, be it natural or man-made. Most of us go out of our ways to help other living beings, both humans and animals. Even the biggest helper or humanitarian seldom extend the same compassion towards themselves. This is the sad reality of the world we live in. People will take bullets for others but if it is for themselves, they falter or think they are unworthy to be saved.

In my honest opinion (even though no one asked for it), the reason behind this behavioral trait is our extremely impossible self-expectations – expectations that we cannot live up to. I am guilty of the same. I go out of my way to help others out and people judge me by these actions because this is what they see. I, on the other hand, internally judge myself based on my internal perspective of how much I helped myself grow. We are own biggest critics! This then puts one in a negative frame of mind, and we start doubting and cussing ourselves and think we are worth less than what others think of us. This leads to self-hatred, regrets and sometimes, depression.

Why does this happen? I have asked myself this question so many a times and each time depending on the environment and the mental state I am in; the answer is different. For example, if anything bad had happened recently, I would be dwelling on that thing and wonder to myself ‘What if I had done that? What would the outcome have been like? Where would I be right now?’ etc. Because I am in a negative state of mind, dwelling on something that happened in the past, I am unwilling to help myself today if the same opportunity presented itself again because I will not notice it. Similarly, if something wonderful had happened, I would be too focused on spreading the happy positive vibes than to focus on what I need at that moment. In either scenario, people tend to overlook helping themselves.

"The only time you should ever look back is to see how far you've come." – Unknown

If you ask others, you might hear some people say that their lives have been defined/molded by the actions and/or decisions they did NOT make – their inability to act. This attitude has a domino effect where missed opportunities happen one after the other.

“Around here we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things” – Walt Disney

[I don't own this photo, I googled it] 

I will share what I have so far learned about this is and try to do every single day is:

• stop living in the past – like Elsa said, ‘Let it Go’. What done is done, there is nothing you can do about it. You can regret all you want but it never changes anything, especially not the outcome. The only thing you can do is learn from it.

• Learn to forget regrets – try to focus on the ‘oh wells’ rather than the ‘if onlys’.  Try to look at the bright side of things, at least you tried your best even if the outcome was not in your favour.

• Every mistake made is a lesson learned – try not to repeat the same mistake more than twice. Learn the lesson they taught you and turn it into a positive to achieve your future goals.

• Celebrate successes – create small goals for yourself and once you achieve them, celebrate them. Acknowledge another people’s success as well as your own.

“It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.” - Jackie Joyner-Kersee 

Hope this helps someone out there because this took me years to learn and I am hoping to pass on what little wisdom I have gained during my time on earth. Stay blessed!