The Quandary: How To Move On

Truth is yesterday is gone. We don’t live there anymore. Everybody knows this. But the remnants of yesterday will often overstay their welcome.

And you want to let go.

You want to move on.

It’s over.

(Right?)

But the remnants of yesterday remain like a memory that repeats itself over and over again.

Let it go . . .

Isn’t that what people say?

Just let it go . . .

The struggle here is accountability. So long as we have feelings, we have the need to hold someone or something responsible for them. We need to understand so we blame us. We blame others. We blame someone or something. We try to rationalize the irrational and come to a conclusion to gain closure. But closure or not, yesterday is gone. We don’t live there anymore.

There is a common suggestion to move on. People will tell you, “It’s out of your control.” They’ll say, “You have to move forward.” or they’ll tell you, “You have to go forward now,” which is true. We do have to move on. Yesterday is gone and no matter how we try, we still don’t live there anymore.

The struggle here is the aftermath. The struggle is the feeling; it’s the regret or the shame and the embarrassment. The difficulty is driven by ego. Someone hurt your feelings? You made a mistake? Did you embarrass yourself? Were you betrayed? Or did you let yourself down? What was it? Did you have a secret exposed?

I get it . . .

The conflict stems from a feeling of foolishness. I suppose this could be why Mark Twain once wrote, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”

Rest assured; no one among us has ever escaped difficulty. We all experience adversity. We all make mistakes.
I repeat this again; we all make mistakes; however, our mistakes do not make us. As a matter of fact, our mistakes can only define us if we allow this to happen or believe this is true.

The struggle here is loss.

We don’t want to lose anything.

We want what we want when we want it.

Isn’t that right?

We don’t want to feel disturbed or disappointed. We don’t want to experience rejection or feel pain or humiliation.
In some cases, we act upon impulse. We give in. Sometimes, we are less than our best. We act upon our compulsions, which perhaps, we knew were wrong, wholeheartedly— but yet, we acted upon them anyway to gain a sense of brief satisfaction. Sometimes we act to solve a symptom of a problem which could be totally unrelated.

But why?

Either way, regardless to what we did or what happened, there is nothing more unchangeable or unalterable and unfixable than yesterday. All we have is now, this very minute. So what do we do with it?

How do we let go?

How can we move on?

How do we feel free when we have all these chains that weigh us down?

How can we breathe freely when we feel something weighing down upon our chest? How can we hold our head up when the tension is heavy in our neck? We feel disheartened sometimes. We feel disappointment. We feel rejection. How do we get away from this? Everyone says move on, but no one ever tells us how.

The only thing we can do is physically step forward. Don’t look left or right. Don’t look at the distractions. Just step forward.

I understand what pain feels like. I understand what it feels like to be uninspired and have no desire whatsoever. I certainly relate to feeling unable and incapable. But if anything is to change, then the change has to come from within.

So step forward. . .

Do something . . .

It’s okay to feel pain.

It’s okay to be afraid.

No one is looking to take your feelings away.

Your feelings are yours.

No one can take them from you.

Understand something:

You are welcome to nurture any feeling you choose

But ask yourself

What benefits me most?

We understand what physical weight is. We know what a pound weighs. The problem is the unfathomable weight of the unknown, like say, the weight we carry from our past and the feelings we struggle to define are impossible to measure.

Truth is nothing can change what already happened. Opinions will be opinions. Situations will be situations and consequences will always be consequences. But we still have to live. am I right? We still have to move on. But how?

No matter how we feel, no matter how hard it is, step forward. Allow yourself the physical act of moving. It is okay if you feel hurt or sad or angry. It’s okay if you don’t want to take the step but give yourself permission to try. Do something. Do anything. Run in place if you have to. Just be sure to try.

Allow yourself the distraction and allow yourself the replacement.
What do you stand to lose?
Allowing yourself the action will allow you to defy your thoughts. By physically doing something different, you allow your body to defy the lies in your mind. Trust me . . . this helps!

Don’t listen to what people say. Don’t listen to someone that tells you to let it go and disregards your feelings.
Look for your source of inspiration. Look for your sources of motivation. Find something you enjoy.
Do it!
Otherwise, we run the risk of being stuck in a life we never wanted for ourselves.

Yesterday is gone. We don’t live there anymore. All we have is now and if we’re not careful with what we have now, we run the risk of allowing yesterday to repeat itself.
(Ask yourself, is that what you want?)
If we improve and if we take a step forward and defy the lies in our head; if we defy the odds that we believed were against us and if we step forward today, when tomorrow comes, we can look back and be proud of what we see.

Do you remember your very first heartbreak?

Do you remember your first really big letdown?

Do you remember how you felt?

Remember how you swore you would never get over it?

Do you still feel that way?

No?

Of course you don’t . . .

Time has a way of pulling off its trick. The difficulty is when we feel the remnants of our past and in the midst of our emotion, tomorrow feels like it’s light years away. We feel the weight of things we cannot change. We feel the weight of emotion, which can be infinite, especially when the emotion is heavy.

I never say the words, “Let it go,” because in my mind, this shows a lack of understanding. See, the thing is feelings are real. They’re not true or false. But they are real.

I understand that whether we accept the past or not; the past is still the past. Yesterday is gone and neither of us lives there anymore, which means there is nothing either of us can do about it. The disadvantages we have are the feelings we keep. This is what weighs us down. This is what keeps us from moving forward. And in some regard, this is what keeps us from letting go.

Life will not always go as planned. People will not always see things the same way.
Not everyone has the same dream and not everyone has the same opinion. Keep in mind, it never pays to assume others will think, act, feel or respond the way we would.

And hey, do you want to know something about me?

Do you want to know if I’m scared?

I’m scared all the time . . .

Sure, I have fears. Sure, I have the wreckage of my past. It barges in sometimes like an unwanted guest that refuses to leave. I’ve made mistakes that have come back to haunt me. I have embarrassed myself. I have feelings about yesterday. I’ve experienced shame.

I have lived with anxiety attacks, feelings of anxiousness, and I’ve gone through bouts of uncomfortable anticipation. I have the fear of the unknown the same as anybody else.
I have reasons to quit and throw all my journals away. I have reasons to pack it in, hit the road and keep it moving. But I don’t. All of my reasons to quit stem from yesterday. But yesterday is gone. I don’t live there anymore.
All I have is now . . .

So I better make it count!