I was watching a MAGA video this morning and they brought up slavery. The guy in the MAGA hat, who happened to be black, said, “It is hard to look forward when we are focused on the past.” That got the old wheels turning.

I’ve promised The Hofflebrock, AKA Justin, AKA my ‘lil Bro, AKA the rapper Also Known As, that I would not delve into politics so this will not be a political post. However, that statement got me. Think about that issue of slavery and how many people hold onto America’s mistakes of the past and feel they need Justice (with a capital $J.)

Is that the way we should view the past? Should we hold onto it even if it becomes a crutch to our success today and into the future? Should we instead forget the past all together and remove the “statues” of failure from our sights so that we will never be hurt from them again? I believe both extremes are ridiculous and detrimental to our progress individually and/or societally.

I’m going to break away from the whole “society” at large thing because it is against the rules now. Let’s talk about the past for us as individuals. Our pasts are full of failures with a few wins sprinkled in there along the way. I don’t care how successful you are, if you look back that is what you will see. You do not have success without a pant load of failure. The more successful you are the more failure you will have. This should be a clue to those of us that have not accomplished much. We haven’t failed enough!

The past is not an evil entity that should be holding us back. The failures and mistakes of the past are what have taught us important life lessons and have shaped who we are today more than any of the successes. The Wins are the results of all that knowledge, physical and mental, that we have gained from our failures. Instead of looking back and holding on to those failures as a crutch that keeps us from progressing, we should celebrate those mistakes as lessons and building blocks to create our future of awesomeness.

If we dwell of the failures then we see ourselves as Failures. If we destroy those failures and ignore them then we are putting ourselves in a state of delusion. We can not progress if we believe we can do nothing but Fail and we can not progress if we do not remember the Lessons our failures have taught us.

Remember the saying by George Santayana, “Those who do not remember their past are condemned to repeat their mistakes. Those who do not read history are doomed to repeat it.”

We must read our own personal history and be scholars of the subject. That way we will be able to foresee future events as opportunities to try something new instead repeating the same pattern of failure.

Action:

1. Take some time to yourself. Evaluate where you are and what your goals or aspirations are? Write them down. Be as progressive as you possibly can. Anything is possible. There is nothing the human mind and body can not achieve. You got this!

2. Next take some time and look deep into the past. Evaluate the mistakes and failures. What steps did you take along the path to those failures? Write them down. Number them and itemize the steps. Find those micro-failures that lead to the final failure and highlight them. Then circle the steps that you believe were positive actions.

3. Go back to your goals. Plug in the positives from the past and brainstorm about some alternative steps to help you to achieve awesomeness in your future goals.

4. Get to work! Look forward! Set out to making a new path of awesomeness!

Warning: You may fail again. You may fall flat on your butt. But that experience and failure will add to the Past. Take that knowledge and readjust your plan for progress. Keep failing and adjusting until you find success. Success is waiting there for you patiently and as long as you learn from your failures instead dwelling on them you WILL find that path to awesomeness.

Yall have an awesome day, week, month and life!

I will catch you on the Flip-Side

Peace out

Swolenoggin