Past - A Rear View Mirror

“One must always maintain one’s connection to the past and yet ceaselessly pull away from it.”

We all seldom indulge in brooding over our past.  We cry over the missed opportunities and repent over our mistakes.  We also nurse a grudge against some one because of an event of the past. In our heart somewhere we always have this feeling that this brooding over the past is a wasteful exercise and we are also certain that it would not lead us anywhere. Still we can't resist a slightest of temptation to indulge in this.  I agree that its not an easy thing to forget our past but I believe rather than brooding over our past we can put it to a constructive use and learn from these past bitter experiences.

Lets look at it in an easy way.  Those who drive vehicle would easily understand this metaphor.  Every vehicle has a rear view mirror.  How often while driving a vehicle we use this mirror?  I bet not more than 10% of the time.  It is used only as a matter of reference or as a matter of a guide to drive our vehicle so that we don’t meet up with an accident.  I believe same applies to our past.  We should think about our past and use it for our guidance while driving our life on the roads of present which are going towards our future.  We should use the past only to ensure that the mistakes we made then are not repeated in our present or in our future.  

Though we keep saying and hearing that ‘everyone learns from his/er mistakes’, we don’t actually implement it.  Our past experiences (mistakes) provide us with an opportunity to learn something for our benefits. We rather use it wisely than indulge in it.