A Present Problem

As a people we have both healthy and unhealthy obsessions with our past and our future.

Our past speaks of situations and circumstances that we have been through and may still keep or have kept us captive for a long time. They have hit our physical, emotional and spiritual states, being reason for why they are impacting. Our past forms of things which have or we have allowed to hit the very core of who we are, being reason to why we find it hard to let go of certain things and allow ourselves to become or stay chained to what has happened and what once was.

The future on the other hand can be similar but contrary. Rather than being chained to what happened, we are chained to what can be. Our future speaks of the unknown, a scary place for the human species. We obsess and have cautious anxieties and deep fears over who we will become, what we will do and how we will be and live. These fears and anxieties can often cause us to resist or relapse on what we can be in life and what we can do.

The only problem with this double sided coin of past and future is that it misses one key element, the present. We always speak about our past, how we should let things go and not become a slave to our past. Also the future in terms of striving to be your best so your future can be bright and successful. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this but we never seem to concern ourselves with our present, the ‘now.’

We believe that our past and future hold the key to our lives but I believe that it is your present that holds the key to your life. This thought has been running through my mind since the start of the new year. Our past and future can hinder us but our present can stop us.

What exactly do I mean by this? Let me put things into a different perspective. We live in the present, surviving our past regardless of what we have been through and where we have come from, and making way for walking into our future. However your present is the now you that is living. Your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual state are what cause you to stay locked in your past or dead to your future. A glimpse of our future gives us hope and the letting go of our past allows us to become free, but our present must ‘see’ and ‘walk’ this out in the now.

No matter what happened in your past or how prospering your future is, if your present self is not mentally, physically, spiritually or emotionally right, making the right decisions or walking in the right direction, it can and will abort who you really are and all you will become. What you submit yourself to you will become. This is why our present and now self must be in a constant state of renewal, healing and rebuilding, otherwise it will stop us from breaking away from our past and put glass in front of our future, only allowing us to see what could of been.

Let’s get our minds and hearts right from 2016 onwards. Let us find ourselves in these constant states of renewal, healing and rebuilding. Our present self must be free and making the right decisions that enable us to be free from our past and able to achieve and bring life to our future. Even as we have entered into this new year with new hopes, desires and goals to accomplish, let us also think about what our present state is allowing us to become.