Thoughts - Making Sense of Life

When you think about it - we are each a sum of many, many things. We are a sum of our genetics, our parents, our upbringing, our environment, our experiences, our families, our decisions, and probably some random other things. Each of us has had very different mixes of these. To get through this life, we have to try to make sense of this cauldron of things stirred together. And most of the time we are doing it on the fly, as life rarely stops and lets us take the time to make sense of it. Also, we don't get a re-do of almost anything. Life doesn't have a reset button, you don't get to take back things you do or say. And we all know that there is absolutely no one who is perfect. We all do things we wish we hadn't, we all say things wrong sometimes. Often times, we make the best decisions we can at the time. Life is more like an action flick than it is a game of chess. In chess you have time to sit and ponder your next move. In an action flick, more often than not you are shooting from a moving vehicle. Also in chess, you are only dealing with one other person, in life - rarely are you dealing with one thing at a time. Instead, it is more like juggling many things at the same time. So, it's no wonder things can get challenging. And when you add into it that many of us carry baggage with us on the trip, it can get hard.

But, there are times when you get to sit down and catch your breath. If you don't take some time to slow down, regroup, think about things, and sort them out, it can get more tangled than a cat in a room full of string. Keeping everything straight and sorted isn't always possible. Usually it is all connected in some way, with no real beginning and end to events. Thing mix together, one thing affects another. Like in relationships. People tend to bring their experiences from the past to their new relationships. There is really no way to know what baggage a person is bringing from their past that has made them who they are today. But some baggage can get heavy. Some things need to be sorted and put away. There is really no way to get rid of your past. And if you think about it, you don't really want to get rid of your past. It is your past that has made you who you are today. I like who I am today. I may not have always done the right thing, I may not have always made the best decisions, but I can say I did the best I could. I look at my past and try to learn what I can from it. I accept that I can't change it, and I try to move on. When you don't let go of some of the baggage, you can find yourself carrying more and more of it. It can get really heavy. I have also learned that forgiveness is essential in life. Forgiving yourself, as well as others, is important. It goes back to the whole no one is perfect. We are all going to make mistakes. Now, forgiving others can be hard. Especially those who have truly hurt you. Truly taken something from you. But, you also have to remember that for whatever reason  they did it, it was their reason. They are not you, you will probably never understand why they did it. You may never forget what they did, but you can forgive and let it go. Put that bag down. Forgiving yourself is harder. Hindsight is 20/20. It is really easy to look back afterwards and see those decisions that you made  or things that you did and find fault. It is also easy to continue to beat yourself up for it. But those decisions you made, you made for a reason that made sense at the time. Probably the best thing you can do for yourself is to accept the past and put the bag down. Don't carry it with you everywhere. Lighten your load by moving forward without it.

But just as important as forgiving yourself for things you have done in the past is realizing that you are responsible for your impact and your actions on others. We all do make mistakes, but there are times when we must also realize that things are our own fault. That we are responsible for what we say and do. Constantly blaming others for things is just as bad as constantly feeling guilty for things that aren't our fault. When we don't take all that we have experienced from life this far, learn from it, and make changes in ourselves, then we are doomed to make the same mistakes over and over. Only by confronting our mistakes and learning from them, can we truly put that baggage down. There have been people in my life that always believed that it was someone else's fault. That they were the victim all the time. Bad things continued to happen to them because they never learned from their own mistakes. Only by learning and changing can you make changes that are going to change your life. That are going to change the outcome. That are going to make your life better.

To come full circle with my point, you have to be still sometimes, pause to review your life, make sense of it and learn from it. The definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect the results to be different. Now, while we can all be crazy sometimes, some more than others, I don't want to be insane. I want to continue down my path without all the baggage weighing me down. I want to find the inner peace to move forward without it. Not always an easy task, but very possible.