It is often said that life is a giant mountain. If we are all climbing to the summit of our personal mountains, then why do we load ourselves with unnecessary baggage? I’m not talking about the tools needed for survival (some kind of work, love and adoration from family and friends, moral compasses, etc.), but the tools that we don’t need (self-pity, failed relationships, damaged pride/egos). We all have desires of victory, whatever that means to us. The form of victory doesn’t matter, or the route to victory. The truth is that we will reach our destinations faster if we traveled lighter. This is a process I’ve come to adopt and have seen results, even when I thought I was wasting time.
Declutter
I’ve come to be a believer in the popular saying, “Less is more.” I used to collect everything known to man. I was afraid to throw anything away. I’ve got tax returns from 15 years ago, paper work from yesteryear, and personal offenses from the past. It wasn’t until I reach my personal bottom that I began clearing out trash. My life was a whirlwind; nothing was organized, I couldn’t find important things that might have made life easier; no, I was a mess. It took approximately 15 months to reorganize and start my journey back to the top. No piece of information was spared. My physical environment transformed in a matter of days, it was the mental baggage that still haunted me. I tried every self-help mantra there was to try, but nothing seemed to work. That is, until the day I made peace with myself. I allowed my past to be what it was, my past. I realized that every thought, decision, word, and action brought me to this point. I didn’t like the point I was at, so I realized that changes would be needed, and I did it. I also thought I wouldn’t succeed in this endeavor either, but time passed, I was focused, and my life turned around without me knowing it. I still have my problems, but I’m more nimble and quicker to respond.
The Dream Team
Besides our physical environment and the pressures that we put on ourselves, another problem abounds. The people in our environment and those that gave us the mental processes that we seek to shed now are influential in our sphere of influence. The wrong crowd steers us the wrong way, while the right crowd gives us tools for success. Is there anybody that you admire? Perhaps a person’s way of thinking or the way they handle certain business? Whatever you’re trying to do, find a person who has already done it. Sometimes we follow wrong influences, and that is ok since we were operating in a mental mode we thought to be beneficial at the time. Now that we know that mode is no good, we need to shift our thinking, and also show our shift of thinking by doing away with actions and people we now identify to be no good.
Letting Go of Ourselves
I mentioned earlier that I gave myself the permission to succeed. A lot of us hold on to our past like we may die if we don’t live it again for our remaining days. It’s one thing to remember the past. Without the past we can’t really say where we want to go. It’s another thing to relive the past as if it were happening again today. Those bad thoughts, injustices, unfair criticisms, whatever it may be, must be released. I can’t tell you how to do that, but however you are wired, you need to find out how to release. We’ve seen those bitter people walking through life mad at the world over something that happened 35 years ago. They never learned to forget. They also haven’t learned how to forgive, whether it is forgiving someone else, or themselves. Let’s not be those people. Let’s be the people that learn the lesson that our pasts had to offer and live those lessons as far as they will carry us. That is also the mark of wisdom, applying life lessons that have been learned.
Today
Today is the day that the people who wish to rise will rise. Today is the day that we will burn our ships and venture out into the world with new mindsets and action plans. Today is the day that instead of relating and holding onto the past, we learn and let go of the past so that we can mold our future and develop a better past for ourselves in due time. Unload that baggage. The mountain of life is rugged and treacherous. If the wolves don’t kill you, the icy temperatures of the soul can. Unload the unneeded baggage so that we can efficiently scale this mountain, settle in the luscious plains, and begin our history.
There is something about the movie Roots that gets me going. I don’t get upset and things when I see it, but I see the hidden fruit that the movie has to offer. To sum up 8 hours of movie watching, we learn to do something, even if the world is against us. This movie came at a good time as 2012 is ending and 2013 is full of promises and hopes.
Laws of Life 