Is the past holding you back?

We have previously explored some of the orientations and attributes that usually limit us from progressing in life in a manner and velocity that we would have hoped for. These orientations and traits included: inconsistency, command and control and win-stay strategy. Another internal and self-imposed limiting behaviour is the tendency to live in the past.  Much treatise has been written on the danger of giving an exaggerated attention to the past. This much treatise on the danger of living in the past is justifiably so, as this pervasive limiting belief has held us captive like the children of Israel in Egypt. Even after the children of Israel were set free from slavery in Egypt en route to the Promised Land, they wished they could return to Egypt once the going got tough. The breaking with the past is a continuous journey that requires intentional choices everyday lest we regress.  The journey will get tough at times, presenting us with an option to go back to Egypt, but we have to resist and soldier on.

It is worth mentioning that not all past is bad and that some of the past or effects of the past are irrevocably in the present. There is an undeniably bad past that limits oneself one way or the other. A man cannot go forward and go backward at the same time.  Jesus said “no man who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom“. To put one’s hand to a plough is a proverbial expression to signify undertaking any business. In order that a ploughman may accomplish his work, it is necessary to look forward - to be intent on his employment - not to be looking back with regret. Arnold Bennett has animadverted upon the tendency to live in the past, saying “All around me I see men carefully tying themselves with an unbreakable rope to an immovable post at the bottom of the hill and then struggling to climb the hill”. There is a point when we need to realise that the past is absolutely intractable, that we have to move forward.

A lot of times, most of us may be looking back and regretting the mistakes we did in the past. Consequently, that limits us from fully enjoying and embracing the present.  What one has done, one has done and there’s an end of it. As a great prelate unforgettably said, "Things are what they are, and the consequences of them will be what they will be. Why, then, attempt to deceive ourselves “. It is also worth mentioning here that as we go through life, we invariably attempt to do the best that our current awareness permits us to do. We learn as we go along, which also implies that our awareness will increase appropriately and in proportion. This is why sometimes we look back at our past mistakes with utter shock, shame and guilt wondering how on earth we could have made those decisions. We then move forward with feelings of guilt and regret.

Some behavioural psychologists have pronounced this behaviour unfair and unjustifiable. They describe guilt as an emotion about the past. Guilt usually comes when one makes a mental comparison; by mentally going back in time to that vignette that we feel shameful about. We then use our present awareness with all its values to harshly adjudicate our past performance in that situation, saying we could have done better. Consequently, this triggers the emotions of shame and guilt. This exercise is not very fair because, if you could get an opportunity to go back with your current awareness and re-live that situation that you are shameful about, just before the event and ask yourself, “knowing what I now know, if I were re-living this event right now, would I have done something different?” The answer is always “Yes”. This is so because you always do the best that your current awareness permits, hence you have an opportunity to go easy on yourself.

Is that past holding you back? Luis Smith said it more bluntly, “you can’t reach for anything new if your hands are still full of yesterday’s junk”

I would like to hear your views on this issue of the past, feel free to leave a comment.