I was going to write a different post this morning.  I was going to talk about how to not be distracted in life, how to stay the course and stay on purpose.  But it’s hard to do that when you’re present life is becoming increasingly drama-filled or anxiety ridden.  There’s been all of this talk about the Pew Report and women breadwinners, about single mothers who make no money versus married women breadwinners who bring home the bacon.  All of the media headlines and the debates and the discussions… and, yet, nobody’s really tackling the issue.

So I’m going to tackle a woman breadwinner issue this morning:

Wishing for a better past

Human nature is a funny thing.  The grass always looks greener on the other side, doesn’t it?  When you’re single, you wish you had someone.  When you’re married, you long for those single days.  When you have babies, you just want some sleep. When you have elementary school kids, you miss having babies to cuddle.  It seems as if we’re always living in the shadow of a past we think was better than it actually was or in serious anticipation of a future we expect to be 100 times better than  what the present currently is.

And it’s all a lie.  Every bit of it.

This kind of “wishing” for something different gets even worse when you’re going through a trial or life difficulty.  For women breadwinners, it could be a stressful work situation or recalling a time when you weren’t the breadwinner (and loved it) or even looking at how your friends live their lives (i.e. not being the breadwinner, not having the stress, not having to fill so many roles) and you start to believe (falsely) that it was so much better “back there.”

Let me help you out with this:

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t better “back there.”  If it had been, you’d still be “back there.”

Your mind forgets a lot of past details.  We propagate the human race based on this kind of amnesia.  If you remembered every detail of pregnancy, labor and delivery, would you really have done it five or six times?  I think not…

You might think you want to be as naive and ignorant as you once were so you wouldn’t be facing what you’re facing right now but guess what?  Ignorance is not bliss and naivete comes with a steep price.

Nothing about “back there” was a fairy tale story… even if you have yourself believing that it was.

Was it different than today? Yes.

Was it better than today? No.

Every step you took, every mistake you made, every experience you had, all of it brought you here and even if here is sheer and utter hell, you were brought to it so you could move through it.

Do not dull the importance of today’s journey because you wish that yesterday hadn’t gone so fast.  It did.  Today will.  Tomorrow might.

There may have been a time, prior to now, when you felt more in control, more at ease, and maybe even more at peace but the lesson of that isn’t that the past was so much better than the present but that, in every moment, then and now, you get to decide exactly how you feel.

You’ve been in a spiritual classroom all this time.  In your most difficult moments, recognize that the classroom didn’t change.  The subject matter, the difficulty level, and the final exam did.

Don’t wish that you were still living in a past that feels better today than it did back then.  When you were in it, you didn’t think so.  Now that you’re out of it, you’re looking for a reason to go back there.

Remember something really important:

“Today is the future I created yesterday.”

– Louise L. Hay

And if you’re still living “back there”, you aren’t creating over here.  You’re rehashing, reliving, and resenting… and you will create MORE of that in your future.

Is that what you really want?

Okay then… take that “wishing for a better past” where? BACK THERE…

#keepitmovin