by Rene Johns

Created on: December 08, 2008   Last Updated: January 24, 2009

It is funny how so often we let our past determine our today and yet still linger on into our future. I myself have fallen victim to this mentality or locked state of mind so to speak, now heading towards my thirty's I wonder how much time I have given away to the pain of my own past? I now understand what the true term "baggage" means and how the weight of our past associated with it hinders the possibility's of our future. How can we focus on the blessings of our future when we cannot let go of our past?Where we come from is not where we have to stay, we can grow, evolve, move on to something better, but first we must learn how to drop the baggage piece by piece until all that is left is the positive.See it is the painful moments that keep us trapped and bound not the knowledge we should take from them in order to push us forward. Our past is our past and we cannot change that but what we do have is the opportunity to change how we view our future in relevance to it.

So how do we start living for our future? We must first decide to stop wasting time on what has been or even the famous what could have been and look forward to what could be. Yesterday has come and gone but tomorrow is not promised. One way is to remember that as we wake each day it is a gift not to be spindled away or even lost to the past. The past can only hinder you as much as you allow it to, in saying this you have to decide not always to forget but let go. In today's society there are so many great example's of individuals who did not give their past a chance to take away from the greatness of their future. Look at those individuals and ask yourself, "what makes them so different-from me." They used a past of pain and sorrow not to keep them bound in the same old shackles but in-turn as a tool to gather strength from in order to cut through their future. Another way to look at this is the fact that living in your past can only give you what you have already had, where in living for the future is a chance to have what you never did.

I decided about a year ago to let go of all the pain and regrets of my past in order to see my future with clear eyes.Forgiveness to those who hurt me as well as myself was the only way to achieve freedom from those annoying bags that use to weigh me down and to tell you the truth with each one I drop it becomes easier to see the positive side of a new day. I can now say that my yesterdays do not in any shape hold my tomorrow hostage.However I do see that the distant mountains I have climbed has given me knowledge about how to make it over any new ones that I may now face, it has given me strength in many forms. In saying this I have not totally forgotten about my past but I have let go of the pain along with the Shackles.

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