Day 26: Don't dwell on the past (there is no future in it)

"You can't have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time." ~Charles F. Kettering

That quote is one of the truest statements I think I have read in a long time. Sometimes we think so much about what happened yesterday that we can't even begin to think about tomorrow. We can't think about today, for that matter.

Oftentimes I think we get into the "blame game". We take responsibility for nothing. "It was our parent's fault! It was the school's fault! It was our neighbor's or uncle's or brother's or sister's fault! It was God's fault!"

Instead of taking responsibility and moving on, we dwell in the past so that the past is all we see. We are the "helpless victims" of whatever wrong was done to us and that is where we stay. I am just as guilty of falling into this trap as anyone else is.

Don't get me wrong, abuse of any type is terrible and it is not the fault of the one who was abused. It is hard to move on from those things. I understand that. I am not saying that a person is awful because they are dealing with some bad stuff from their past. But that is the whole key, "deal with it" and then move on. Don't dwell on the past, there is no future in it!

Sometimes I think we carry this "victim" thinking with us when we work on weight loss, too. "It is not my fault that I am fat!"

Whatever our reason is for being overweight, we are here now. That's a fact. Something we have to deal with and move on from if we hope to lose weight.

I hope I am not coming off as being uncaring and rough about this issue. It is just that unless we can start to take responsibility for our part in things, we never go anywhere. We sit and dig a rut that we wallow in and go nowhere. I have done that in my life. I suspect that many of us have done that. Unless I can start to look forward toward tomorrow, then I will go nowhere. Personally, I want to move ahead. I am guessing you want to move ahead, too.

If I am totally off on this post, please don't be afraid to comment. Sometimes I am not the best at explaining what I mean if I am feeling "fired up" about something.

Be good to yourself and to one another.

Karin