What is written

In my last post we talked about how the stumbling blocks in our way give us an indication of how to go about making a plan to get what we want. Here and now we will be discussing something else that people often use as a limiting factor.

Your past. What has gone before. Your record. History. They are different words that all mean the same thing. It is the accumulation of things that we have done and that have been done to us right up until this very moment that have caused us to be where we are today.  But we are not the things that we have done.  I am sure that you have heard someone say that whoever they were talking about would never amount to anything due to their past record. They may have said things like that person is a screw up, always in trouble with the law. Stay away from them or they will take you down with them.
 
Many people that know me today, would either be surprised or have a hard time believing what I used to be like. I was an angry, angsty, bitter, frustrated wreck. I had anger management and self control issues, had frequent violent outbursts both verbal and physical. There were multiple instances of being on the wrong side of the law including theft, vandalism, property destruction and arson. I had frequent thoughts of both murder and suicide.

My life is not like that anymore. Nowadays, I am calm and peaceful in nearly every circumstance, even when things are not going my way. There are times where I get agitated, but nothing like before and my tendency is to not get upset in the first place about many things that used to drive me up the wall. Through experimentation and effort I have learned many constructive ways to vent the stress when I do get upset, so that it does not find its way to such destructive outlets.

If the sum total of my life were to be based on my past, then by all rights I should be in jail or dead. But why am I not? Because I did not use my past as a limiting factor. I did use it as a yardstick, but not for measuring where I would end up. Instead, I used it to take a measure of where I was. Then I asked myself if I was okay with being there. I found out that I was not and began to take steps to change things until I became happy with the results. First, I learned to control my emotional outbursts, which was a start but not enough. Then I learned how to not let others know whether or not they were pushing my buttons. And finally I learned to restructure the way I think so that less buttons exist and the ones that are there are much smaller and harder to find. It was at this point that I became happy with my results and focused on other issues.

The key here was that I used my past as a spring board or a starting point instead of a limiter. Just as the obstacles in yesterdays post paved the way for dreams coming true, my past was the first step in writing a new and better future for myself.

And if a simple demon/angel/alien/baby like me can do it so can you.