Why you should not hold onto your bad past experiences?
Once a group of friends planned for an adventurous trip. They decided to explore a forest with a desire to connect more with nature. It was Saturday morning and they started their journey. They had a lot of experiences during the day. As the night approached, they came across a river. Luckily, they found a boatman who was ready to help them cross the river. As they were tired, they boarded the boat and quickly fell asleep. The whole night the boatman was rowing and morning when they woke-up, they found they are still at the same place. Surprised, they checked what was wrong? Immediately they realized that boatman forgot to remove the anchor!
Often in life, we get negative experiences. Someone we love, we care for, we could die for, may push us to the edge and expose us to some ugly realities of life. The problem further aggravates when a person holds onto such experiences and live them repeatedly in their head. Such constant recollection jeopardizes their growth by killing the time they could use for living in the present and planning a better future. Such people live in the past and in pain!
“Carrying is an effort, dropping is a decision. Drop your limited past. Embrace your limitless future.” — Mahatria Ra
Life brings us across a huge variety of personalities. Some may be toxic, some cunning, some caring, some helpful and so on. Anchoring to the experience with toxic personalities and branding everyone as toxic is disempowering. Not everyone is the same! Our mind loves negativity and gives more attention to negative instances which proves that it is negatively biased. It neglects positive experiences and makes our life more miserable. This forces us to live a life anchored to darkness which prevents us from working on a bright future. And as can be seen from the above story, unless we remove the anchor, we can’t move forward.
“It was a mistake, not a life sentence.” -Anonymous
Just because we judged someone wrongly in the past, doesn’t implicitly mean that we discontinue living a normal life and live the rest of our life in a shell. An intelligent person learns from the past and takes preventive measures for the future. Such a person will be open for future experiences anchoring only to the lessons learnt, not to the past events.
The great epic Mahabharata tells us the story of how Kauravas deployed ugly and unethical strategies to destroy Pandavas to usurp their rightful kingdom. They did so many heinous acts that they qualified to be referred to as aggressors (Bhagavad Gita 1.36). Still, during the battle of Kurukshetra, Arjuna declined to fight against them. Why? Although aware of all the atrocities done by Kauravas, he didn’t anchor to the past but was pondering on the future consequences of the war. He didn’t allow his past to negatively influence the future. This shows the broad-mindedness and powerful intelligence of Arjuna, and these qualities are what entitles him of a unique identity of his own. Later, through empowering and divine wisdom of Bhagavad Gita, he finally agreed to fight. This time, not for personal revenge, but to establish righteous King for the welfare of the entire humanity!
So, don’t anchor to the past events but lessons. Focus on what you can do now rather than thinking only about what could have been better. Become empowered with this understanding and work on a better future.
All the best!!!
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My suggestion: Please read the Bhagavad Gita As It Is by HDG A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada for deeper insights.
