Past & Present

A few days ago, I had a rather unnerving thought:

"I'm never going to be able to undo it, am I? It will always be something that happened, no matter how much I wish it didn't".

This heartbreaking realization was on the heels of watching something traumatic on TV that I wasn't prepared for. The scene hit me like a ton of bricks, out of nowhere, causing me to make a quick exit to my room. As I sat there gasping for air, I realized that the horrifying thing I just saw narrated on this docuseries, was so harrowing because I had pretended for years that it didn't happen, simply by refusing to think about it. Out of sight, out of mind, I said to myself, nope! I somehow convinced myself that if I didn't think about it long enough, I could convince my brain to erase it and if that happened, then it's not a thing that happened. (I know, I'm hilarious)

I have spent a good chunk of my life ruminating on past experiences - as one does, it's my very own mental TikTok doomscroll. Picture it, me, minding my business and functioning as an adult, my brain for no reason whatsoever on a random Tuesday:

"OMG remember the cringe thing that happened in grade school that I'm sure everyone is currently thinking about at this very moment and laughing about? No? Well, here it is along with several other unrelated things from the past three decades I think you should immediately obsess about, in 8K! Bisou bisou!"

I, being the stubborn goat I am (surprising because I have zero Capricorn placements) immediately start to apply every lesson I've learned on how to handle rumination because my brain is not the boss of me, forgetting that that in itself is ruminating and there goes my afternoon.

Too often we're stuck in the past wanting to unravel it with the lessons that we learned from the future, wanting to undo it with information that we have from our present. We say to ourselves “I shouldn’t have done that!” “I wish I didn’t say that” “I should’ve known better”, forgetting that the only way and the only reason that we know better and we know that we shouldn’t have done that, is because we did it already! We did it and it didn’t work out. We never come back to things that we did that did work and say “Oh, I shouldn’t have done that!” That’s kind of silly right? Because if you do it and it works out then obviously you should’ve done it. It is only when the results aren’t desirable that we turn around and say I shouldn’t have done that, but how would you know? How would we know that we shouldn’t or should have done that if we didn’t already do it? The doing must be done for the lesson to be learned. To put it more succinctly:

"You have to do something to further the plot, otherwise you're just on pause." (Hallelujah somebody! Get this woman a podcast, oh wait...<insert shameless plug>)

Life is an experiment. You’re supposed to explore, be curious, figure it out. Trust yourself, journey in life, journey within yourself, journey with yourself, listen to journey, don't stop believing, hold on to your feelings, streetlights...alright I got distracted, my fault.

The point is, you have to take risks (calculated, obvs) and just try not to die, that is literally your only job. Life is risks. Life is trying things and sometimes you will try something and it won’t work out. The response is not to sit in the future where it didn’t work out and say to the past, I shouldn’t have done that, then stick yourself right there and obsessively try to unmake it happen, forgetting that if you undo what already has been done, you will also undo the knowledge you currently have!

You cannot unravel the past with the future, you cannot stick yourself in the tar of the past, then will your present self to travel back into the past to tell you not to do it, because you're afraid to step out of the tar. You're afraid that people will see that you foolishly made a mess and laugh and point and say all the things (spoiler: they will, regardless) If they see a mess, they'll say "OMG what a mess she's made!" If they see no mess, they'll say "OMG she thinks she's better than everyone!" And while you sit there trying to figure out a way to hide, you do not notice that you're stuck there, past present and future versions of yourself are mired in this mess that hardens around you with each passing year, solidifying itself as your identity. 

Climb out, my love, you cannot undo the past, but you can assert the future with the present. Set yourself free and try, try, try again, you're alive, what else is there to do but try?

Unrelated, you can now find Noe Knows on LinkedIn cos y'know hashtag branding baby! Support us here and tell your corporate baddie friends: https://www.linkedin.com/company/noe-knows/

 PS: Here's the full picture on this post cos the crop is a hater.