What are the “almosts” in life? They are the times we think about now and again, or maybe too often, that resonate with the poem by Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken.” Sometimes we call them “missed opportunities” or let words go through our minds like “I should have….” or wonder where we’d be if we’d only done something another way. This train of thought, if we let it linger, can bring regret, sadness, even anger and resentment. The truth is we are exactly where we are supposed to be, because we are in the life we have created. Those other paths are probabilities we’ll never know, but they don’t matter. Something inside us led us to make the choices we did that brought us to the present moment. That is what matters.

There is a theory in art that describes painting an image not by drawing the actual subject, but by drawing what is in the space around the subject, so that whatever emerges is a truer vision. If we look at the things we “almost” did, it is the same way—they are the space around us, out of which we emerged not as part of them, but as a unique subject born out of the unknown.

I have often wondered why I didn’t take this or that path that opened to me or for me. But that kind of thinking is tricky. Had I taken any of those “almost” opportunities, all the others would have closed. It is not as if all paths are open all the time—at least not in our earth-bound terms. Each one taken becomes its own world and sets up its own trajectory. We shift the trajectory each instant of time when we make a choice.

It’s often when we don’t feel we have a good enough handle on things that the other roads we might have taken, the choices we almost made, come to mind. We wish for the “almost” life.

But it is the “I” we are now that matters. So it seems important to me that we give into this life all we’ve got, trusting that it is the way it is for a reason. We are meant to live with our fullest energy and potential wherever we find ourselves, because this is our destiny here and now, not in some far away place or time that might have been. It is a wonderful unknown to reveal.

The stories we tell ourselves are not who we are, but we have become so used to them, we mistake the soul of us for the story itself. A frequent part of current seminars on self-improvement and personal development (see my post on Letting Go of the Past) speak about the stories that keep us stuck in the past, that can come out of painful and unhappy times and become a part of our psyche, even, or especially, if they are distortions of memory. We all do this and moving forward out of such stories can be intensely difficult. The problem is that often we treat the story as absolute truth and it can become a kind of self-imposed prison of feelings and shifting memory, what I call the vampire effect. So long as this state remains, we are never fully in touch with who we are, or what we are here for. We think we are mirroring our real self, but in truth, we are recalling an illusion.

So what keeps us from changing the narrative, and letting go of that prison, however we may have shaped it? For no matter what we tell ourselves, the design of the narrative is our own creation, and only we can change it from something negative into something life-giving. We are not in the present moment when we remember what has caused us unhappiness. We are not our authentic selves when we rely on the past to serve as our interpretation of reality. If we do, we will always be wrong.

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We hear and read the idea often, that letting go of the past is good for us. It is true. We know how thoughts of what was and what used to be can trap us and steal us away from the life we are living now. Most of the time we assume this refers to negative experiences in our past, for they can consume our thoughts far too much. Shaking off the effects of bad memories that include betrayals and emotional trauma is essential for us to feel good about ourselves. There are libraries of books on this one subject. It is a human experience, this matter of finding a way out of whatever has given us pain, grief, and sadness.

An entire industry of self-improvement and personal development has emerged since the late eighties and flourishes now. It has transformed our perspective about what can be done to make life more authentic and to help us get back our own power, which we very often give away by focusing on negative memories and feelings. I mention this is my post on The Vampire Effect of Negative Emotions. The people involved in this industry have, without exception, emerged out of immense personal crisis with revelations about how it can be done more easily, and they give away many free seminars, webinars, and tools to help others do this, too. You can visit some of these people at these links: Margaret Lynch, Nick Ortner, Louise Hay, the late Wayne Dyer, Mary Morrissey, Pema Chodron, Ilchi Lee, Andrew Harvey, Arianna Huffington, Dr. Hew Len, Eckhart Tolle, Rikka Zimmerman, Jeff Gignac, Marianne Williamson, and Derek Rydall. And there is the one-man powerhouse of personal development and change–Tony Robbins.

What comes across in reading and listening to these leaders are two things especially: one, they each came out of a past experience that was either life-threatening in some way or so debilitating that they could readily and willingly have succumbed to defeat. They didn’t. They found a way not only to survive, but to thrive. Then they paid it forward, developing methods and programs others could use and benefit from by engaging in life in the present moment. In every case, that is the core of their philosophy and teaching: letting go of the effect and influence and far too heavy weight of the past on our minds and hearts–the things that prevent us from living our true life purpose and destiny.

What makes this matter most of all, though, is that each of these leaders offer not a solution they possess for other people, but a way for others to find the answers within themselves. The best of these leaders see themselves as facilitators and guides, but insist that the way to true and positive release from the past is something the rest of us already know, deep inside. We already have the solutions to our problems and fears, so often derived from past memories and experiences. We already have the ability to let go of the past, to experience revelations for ourselves, to trust what lies within us for the answers. These leaders and movers and shakers in this industry–the good ones–can be identified by this fact: they do not have the answers for us–they have the methods they have developed to help us find the answers for ourselves, even if we have blocked this before because of our inability to let go of a past we have held too close.

Doing that is how we get to live our life NOW.

A friend told me that he tried every day to last the whole day without having a single judgment of anyone. Just one day. He couldn’t do it. There would be success for a while but then he would have a fleeting thought like “I don’t like that person’s accent” or “That woman is too heavy” or “Their house is run down” or “He’s still conceited after all these years” or “This line at the post office is too slow.” He had a whole list. The thoughts would be so brief that to catch them he had to be very aware. Some days there might be only two or three, but it was difficult. He would criticize someone on television or someone richer than he was or complain about his daughter or his wife. There would always be something. They were minor, but they affected him. He said he knew his constant state of judgment hurt him more than anyone. So he keeps working to diminish the impulse to judge anyone, for any reason.

If we cannot stop our fleeting, short-lived judgments day-to-day, what happens when we are faced with dilemmas much greater in scope? How often do we think that our values and way of life are challenged by “outsiders”? How quickly are we willing to condemn them and exclude them from participation in our world? What do we do first when we encounter these people who are not like us—do we smile in welcome, or do we frown in disapproval and turn away, if not literally, then in our hearts?

Judgment of others is a defensive measure, just as prejudice is, and gossip, too. They all are used to express negative opinions of others or circumstances at some level. Usually we try to feel justified in doing this, but in the end, of course, that’s not how it really feels. It never feels good, though it lends itself to some short-lived satisfaction born out of our own fearfulness. We are often afraid we are not all we can be, and it takes the pressure off us if we criticize others. We think it balances the scales–at least we think that at an unconscious level.

In truth, such a judgmental outlook is the antithesis of cooperation and compassion and balance. It encourages isolation of mind and heart. Why does that matter? We live in a world that needs healing. We have to begin with ourselves. Letting go of judgment is how we begin–at least being aware of doing that, every day, like my friend. It’s got me interested.

The vampire effect of negative emotions occurs when we give away our personal power repeatedly to what does not serve us and let those emotions feed on our spirit.

So many emotions run through us every day, and far too often these are negative, directed toward ourselves or to others and external events. It can be difficult to extricate from this pattern. The thoughts repeat.

We yield to emotions–they are the core of what makes us human. You can’t shut them out—we are meant to acknowledge whatever feelings show up for us in life. But we aren’t meant to keep acknowledging again and again anything that brings pain and suffering or remorse and grief and self-doubt. There is another way, always available to us.

Emotions Last 90 Seconds

The physiological truth, verified by science, is that emotions reach every cell and have a duration of 90 seconds. That’s it. Whatever you feel, it lasts in the body for no more than 90 seconds. The ONLY way any emotion lasts longer is because we remember it and play it over and over again in our minds. It is a human tendency to replay whatever bothers us, saddens us, or confuses us, like our minds are on our very own CNN channel.

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Walden Pond

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” ~Walden

Thoreau was doing more than simplifying his life when he went to live alone near Walden Pond. His desire was to experience life without distraction, to feel it with a mindfulness that allowed him to know each moment for its own sake. His attention was taken up with watching the landscape and its inhabitants, the creatures of the woods and water, and by the mundane tasks of each day. There was no past or future, but instead only a living in the present.

There is a life purpose for our sojourn on this earth…

What he discovered and wrote down still holds us in its power, We are meant to use the energy of our unique self to express our gifts out into the world now, not later. Like Thoreau, we are meant to serve in this way–and with each effort we make that is in alignment with the “essential facts of life,” we discover that we have lived.

There are clear signs–and familiar ones–when we are not in such alignment, usually appearing as dissatisfaction and escape into distraction and procrastination. If we stay too far from our life purpose and for too long, we can feel dis-ease and depression. Often we wait for someone to show us what it is, to tell us what it is, even to give it to us by some magical process.

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