“Finish each day
and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and
absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a
new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be
encumbered with your old nonsense.” Ralph
Waldo Emerson
I
can’t begin to count the minutes, hours, days even that I have lost beating
myself up about the dumb, stupid, careless, “blunders and absurdities” that I
did yesterday, last week, even years ago. When I recognize that I am doing
this, because my old tapes do play occasionally, I stop. I ask myself if I
truly believe I was capable, at the time, of doing anything different. Then I
ask myself if reliving this event and beating myself up again is helping me do
anything today. Is it making me a better person? Is it teaching me anything
new? If not, and it usually isn’t, then I move on to a different story. Even if
it’s as simple as how to tie my shoes. Anything is healthier than punishing
myself again for something that happened in the past. Besides, punishing myself
in this way today will just become tomorrow’s absurdity.
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