Past as Prelude

There’s a scene in “The Lion King” in which the wise baboon, Rafiki, confronts Simba about running away from the past.  To make his point, Rafiki, hits Simba on the head with his staff.  When Simba asks “why’d you do that?”, Rafiki laughs and simply says “What difference does it make? It’s in the past!”  To which Simba replies “Yeah, but it hurts.”

The past has no power over your life other than the power that you give to it.  If your past is filled with bad memories or bad choices, then it is likely that the past still contains some pain for you.  But what difference does that make?

As Rafiki points out, you have two choices: keep thinking about the pain, or learn from it, and move forward.

Your history is what made you who you are today–the good, the bad, and the ugly.  If you are in a position where you are trying to take control of your life and move forward (by doing things like reading this blog) then you have obviously come to a pretty good place.  Accept the lessons your life has dealt you and use them to push yourself forward, but don’t give them any more power than that.

The Gurus of Get It

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The Physics of Your Life

We wrote last week about the ‘flywheel,” which, once set in motion by a lot of energy, stays in motion.  This operates on one of the central tenets of Physics: a body in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by an external force.  Once a body is in motion it has a degree of momentum, which creates inertia.

Your life has its own inertia.  The choices you make, the things you put your energy into, tend to set you in a certain direction.  If you’re smart, that direction is a good one, and you find yourself gradually getting closer to your objectives.  If you’re foolish, that direction could be just about anywhere.

The great part is that Physics teaches us that you can change your direction if you don’t like it.  The not-so-great part is that changing directions–changing inertia–requires a new and sometimes extraordinary input of energy on your part.  Sometimes that energy is simply sweat and hard work; sometimes it will be psychic energy, as you try to deal with yourself in new and honest ways; and sometimes it will be purely emotional energy, as you disentangle yourself from destructive patterns and relationships.  Probably it will require some combination of the three.

But rest assured, change will not happen without you acting.

The Gurus of Get It!