Don't Go Changing The Past
Monday Morning Restart - 4/15/2024
Welcome to another week!
I took a little time off of work the week past and when I got back I could feel that I had lost my groove. But now we are back at it, full swing. I hope you are, too!
What I learned this week: Don’t Go Changing The Past
You can’t change the past. Unfortunately, we all tend to dwell on our past: the mistakes we made, how awkward we were, the chances we didn’t take, and the list goes on and on. This weekend, I made the mistake of pulling out my high school yearbook from my graduating year (I think that’s the only yearbook I ever bought). I am not sure why I decided to do this, but I spent the rest of the weekend flooded with lots of thoughts and emotions, but I wasn’t sure why.
Until this morning, when I realized two things: This is my tenth year since my high school graduation, so we should be getting together this year. But, I also am not in contact with any of the people that I was close friends with. At one point I would have said D’Artagnan was my best friend. And in a lot of ways, I still think of him as the ideal good friend. I had a couple of other close friends, too. These guys were really solid people who pushed me to do as good as I could in various areas of my life, which is odd considering none of them were Christian.
Anywho, I decided to text D’Artagnan, and sure enough, he responded. I guess he’s doing good, considering he’s in Costa Rica surfing right now with Jordan, another good friend from high school. I didn’t have a falling out with any of these guys, and I bet if we were still living in the same area, then we could probably catch up quickly and hit things off right back where we were, 8 years ago. But that’s life. You move on and without meaning to you get out of touch with people who you considered to be good friends.
I think that’s the main reason I was so sad. It’s hard to make friends as an adult. You don’t have a school where you can become friends with people. You have work, but socializing too much is frowned upon. But I spent four of the more important developmental years of my life with these guys, growing up with them. We share a lot of crazy stories and really, really dumb jokes.
And because we are no longer close, I started realizing what I missed out on by not keeping in better touch with them. I started going down this train of thought of how my life might be different if I still had those guys in my life. I wasted my weekend because I could not focus on the present, read or write, or get much done. I zoned out on the couch, in this weird funk.
So, for this week: Don’t go trying to change the past. It’s over and done with. Learn from it. Admit your mistakes. Think about what you’ll do differently next time. I tell the boys at my work all the time: Regret, don’t dwell. It’s okay to regret a past mistake, whether it’s something you did do or didn’t do. That’s all fine. But it doesn’t help anyone to dwell on it. All you do is ruin your day. Or, for me, your weekend.
What I’m reading:
The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
Endurance by Alfred Lansing
Zig-Zag: The Surprising Path to Greater Creativity by Keith Sawyer