A Letter To My Past!

Dear Loving people,

Join me as I write this letter to my Past. It could equally be your past. Given that our past often hangs around us for a while, I will be choosing my words carefully but being firm….

My time honored past, you have this way of letting me dwell on you from time to time to the extent that I now think its okay because as it goes, I am human with emotions.  As I live life and experience it to its fullest, it’s only natural that I sometimes cling onto what once was.

Some days it’s easy to get stuck in the past, to dwell on the things that didn’t turn out the way we wanted them to.  It can be easy to slip into this way of thinking when we are feeling sick, lonely or stressed. Whilst reflecting on the past can be a helpful learning tool for making better choices going forward, spending too much time looking back and wondering what could have been is often a waste of time and energy.

I read from an unknown author that “A bend in the road is not the end of the road…unless you fail to make the turn.” That is why I must tell you that when my human desire to cling to you affects my future, I begin a potentially unhealthy and seemingly endless battle with anchors that can hold me down and sink me. At such moment malicious Past, you better leave me alone.

I grew up in a rural community wherein recounting frightful allegories was the order of the day. I once was told that at a certain in October every year, a fierce faceless creature in the form of a man roamed the hills and lonely roads decapitating children. This story often paralyzed me and killed all ounces of courage in me, I was often scared to death when my parents sent me on an errand that required me passing through lonely roads. I could not stay in the house alone, or be anywhere alone. It got to a point where I was sick during the month of October just thinking that I might be a victim at any moment. It was much later in life when I got to realize that the story had some similarities with the Celtic feast of Samhain and that parents used it to deter their children from wondering about aimlessly.

But then, I carried this burden with me, letting it anchor me down, which made certain locations, periods, and possibilities “off limits.” I dreaded every October, afraid that my emotions would spin out of control because of these anchors. Sometimes they did, but it took me a while to realize it was because I let them. I got know that many other people who might have experienced a breakup, a tragic death, or a streak of bad luck, certain people, places, and things probably anchor them to the past. Now is the time for you let go and move forward:

Desolate Past, I am telling you exactly how I am going to kill you. When I begin to dwell on you my Past more than I feel is healthy, I ask myself a series of open-ended questions: Why does this memory matter to me? Does it serve me to restrict certain opportunities because they remind me of this memory? What’s the worst that can happen if I’m faced with a brutal reminder of this memory? What can I do to live with this memory, accept it, and move forward? And of course, eliminate could, should and would from my vocabulary. Sue Augustine advices “Our past can control today and tomorrow only to the degree we allow it. The past should not be a place where we dwell but a place from which we learn all we can and then move on.”

Miserable Past, I am taking with seriousness Take Dr. Seuss’s words: “Those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” I am capitalizing on your feeble tactics as an opportunity to discover who is really touching my life now. Who’s truly there for me? How can I enjoy my shared connection with a person to my life now?  I am trying my hardest to forget about who once was there for me.

I have decided to be there for those who are there for me. I think that this is a great step in building new and meaningful relationships to help focus on the present. Perhaps they’re anchored down, too. We can help each other. This is why reciprocated relationships are the only ones that truly work.

I have come to understand that my anchor does not own me. It cannot dictate my actions, make me feel inferior, or restrict me from living the life I want without my consent. I hence know that I am my own person, every anatomical and emotional part of me. My charisma is unique and I am owning it and I know I will rise up.

To drive home the last nail on your coffin shameless Past, I am now busy with my daily activities, I will hence identify with like-minded people because I have realized that each new day presents me with huge opportunities to make new memories happen. This is a gift I have often taken for granted. I must tell you that your anchors will not hold me down anymore. I have opted to let go and now they are slight road-bends in the endless highway of life.

Sue Augustine says “The time has come to lay that baggage down and leave behind all the struggling and striving. You can be set free as you journey forward into a balanced healthy and rewarding future.”

Open Letter To Failure

Dear loving people,

Today, I am addressing a ferocious letter to FAILURE. Join me as we put an end to whims and caprices of this persisting ill.

Pitiable FAILURE, I write to you today because I strongly think it’s about time I give you a bit of my mind. I am equally motivated by this Chinese proverb that says “If you want 1 year of prosperity, grow grain. If you want 10 years of prosperity, grow trees. If you want 100 years of prosperity, grow people. You now can understand why I should free my people and myself.

In my quest to obliterate you, I stumbled on Anon’s words “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of success.”

Do I need to tell you again lamentable Failure that the game is over? You can see I am stepping unto the higher grounds of Success. I know you have always known that Life has its ups and downs and that everybody experiences you and success. But what is success and what is in you that make people categorize you as Failure?

As Failure, you’ve so lingered around success to the extent that people no longer need a universal definition since every person has their own definition of what success and failure mean to them. Talking about success, one can generally say that success could also be described as an achievement, whether in a particular area of life or generally in all areas of life. But, when it comes to you Failure, you leave people with much to be desired, you are such an injudicious incident in life where something goes wrong or does not go according to plan. One person may consider getting a bad grade a failure, while others might see it as a chance to try again and succeed in the second go.

Failure, thanks to your manipulations, you and success can occur in several different areas of life. A person can be successful in his or her job, he or she can lead a successful private life or be in a successful relationship, or achieve success in his or her hobbies. Possible examples of success in professional life could be getting your dream job, receiving a pay raise or being complimented by your boss. But in a time of a dramatically increasing number of burnout cases, being successful in your job could also mean not being stressed out and still achieving good results at work. Leading a successful private life could mean being in a happy relationship or having great friends. Success in hobbies could apply to sports or fishing.

Whether we are successful or trapped by you Failure is sometimes judged by others, yet sometimes we judge ourselves. The principal rule to success is mental strength. Optimism or positive thinking can help in becoming successful in any area of life. An optimistic attitude, as well as a pessimistic one, can strongly influence everything you do and therefore play a major part in your way to success. Whether we succeed or not will mostly be a result of our own work towards our goals, and should not primarily be defined by others. This is why we should concentrate on ourselves and on our goals and it will be a lot easier to achieve them and by so doing, chase Failure and its manipulations out of the system. Are you scared Failure? Hang on…

Failure, let me spoil your day by informing you that contrary to your carefully designed plans, you are rather becoming an asset to success. You head me, and I say so because I have come to realize that the sweetest victory is the one that’s most difficult. The one that requires man to reach down deep inside, to fight with everything they’ve got, to be willing to leave everything out there on the battlefield—without knowing, until that do-or-die moment, if their heroic effort will be enough.

I must tell you disgusting Failure that society doesn’t reward defeat, and you won’t find many failures documented in history books. The exceptions are those failures that become steppingstones to later success. Such is the case with Thomas Edison, whose most memorable invention was the light bulb, which purportedly took him 1,000 tries before he developed a successful prototype. “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” a reporter asked. “I didn’t fail 1,000 times,” Edison responded. “The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Now! Failure, let me tell you exactly why you must be defeated. “One of the biggest secrets to success is operating inside your strength zone but outside of your comfort zone,” Heath says. Although someone might fail incredibly, they might succeed incredibly—and that’s why incredible risk and courage are requisite. Either way, they’ll learn more than ever about their strengths, talents and resolve, and they’ll strengthen their will for the next challenge.

Finally, Heath stays motivated by the thought that, “if I become complacent and don’t take risks, someone will notice what I am doing and improve upon my efforts over time, and put me out of work. You’ve got to keep finding better ways to run your life, or someone will take what you’ve accomplished, improve upon it, and be very pleased with the results. Keep moving forward or die.”

Too bad for your Failure, your doom is eminent as far as success oriented people are concerned. That is our job at Living Lectures.

Happiness

Extra-Mile Moments

Dearly Loving People,

I don’t know what you belief in but I know that we all belief in some Universal or higher Power. As a Christian, I call that power God. You might have your own appellation because even atheists do belief in something. It is that Higher Power that can push you to want to standby others in times of need in fact, to show some love.

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Thomas S. Monson says “When faith replaces doubt, when selfless service eliminates selfish striving, the power of God brings to pass His purposes.”