Yesterday

I came across these sentences in a book the other day.

"I am amazed by how many individuals mess up every new day with yesterday. The insist on bringing into today the failures of yesterday and in so doing, they pollute a potentially wonderful day.....The best thing we can do with the failures of the past is to let them be history. Yes, it happened. Certainly it hurt. And it may still hurt.....We cannot erase the past, but we can accept it as history. We can choose to live today free from failures of yesterday."

The words hit me like a ton of brick.

That's exactly my problem.

I'm burdened by the failures of yesterday.

I am so paralysed by what I didn't do or failed to do yesterday that I'm unable to do anything today.

I'm grabbing on so tight to the mistakes and failures of yesterday that I'm failing to see the hope and joy of tomorrow.

For not being able to let go of the past, I'm unable to move forward.

Letting go has always been difficult for me. It's a lesson that I could exhaust my whole life, and still not learn it well.

But as I keep piling on the weight from yesterday on my shoulders, I'm forgetting to live today, I'm failing to see tomorrow.

And I need to stop doing that to myself, or the people around me.

I need to leave the past in the past, and accept them as history.

I don't imagine that I'll be able to learn to do it overnight, but maybe, I can start by putting some, just some, things behind me and try to move on.

Maybe I can try to forgive myself for those failures and mistakes, and allow myself to be happy again.

Maybe, I can choose to live tomorrow, if not today, free from failures of yesterday.

It's the last day of winter here in Melbourne.

Here's hoping that soon, the sun will start shining again where I am.