The Train Has Already Left the Station

Sometimes I wish life had a "do-over" button, or a "go back" like on my computer. When I do something impulsively, I want to just wipe it all away and start over again.

Other times when events play out in a pattern that is painful, I sometimes fall into the trap of obsessing over "if only" or "what might have been."

I have a picture hanging in my office with a verse that says:

"I cannot change yesterday. I can only make the most of today, and look with hope toward tomorrow."

It is useful for me to pay attention to the past, so I can learn from it. It is not useful for me to spend my energy on regret, as I can never go back.

I can say "Oops! Nevermind" when I make a mistake. I can apologize. I can repent. I can forgive. I can choose to focus on the future.

What I cannot do is change the shape of what has come before. Sometimes I wish with all my might that I could make something go away. But I don't have that sort of power.

I've already paid the tuition. I better allow myself to claim the education that all that past stuff brought me. And then I need to turn my face to a new day.

Let it go.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once said:

"Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This day is all that is good and fair. It is too dear, with its hopes and invitations , to waste a moment on yesterdays."