Inspired : Looking Back, Moving Forward

Lots and lots of wonderfully thankful and reflective Thanksgiving posts are all around the Blogosphere these days. It is the season where we think about what we have, what we want, and the people who fill our lives with love (and maybe just a little drama).

In this post from Katy Loves, Thankful, she talks about hearing Dolly Parton on Good Morning America talk about changes in life and the ability to go back and change them if we could:

“You can’t think like that and I don’t. Sure there are things here and there you wonder if you could do them differently. But then, changing one thing could change everything.”

I think this wonder of coulda, woulda, shoulda, makes our present less important and special. We are either thinking of the past or considering what will happen in the future that  we often don't consider what is going on right now, in this moment, in this day, and how it affects us. 

This resonated with me, as it did with Katy, because I think about how the hell I got to where I am now. If one relationship hadn't worked out, if I didn't randomly find that website for that experience, if I didn't even try to change my situation, then where would I have been now. It's easy to think about the "what if" and if things could be better. I am constantly constantly checking myself to say that even if I wasn't the happiest in X situation, at least I experienced it, know that it didn't work out, and can then move on. If I left a situation thinking it was the worst and then came to realize that maybe it wasn't so bad after all, then that is a lesson learned.

I think the biggest thing with experiences, both big and small, are that they tell us something about ourselves; what we like or don't like, how people can lift us higher or take us down, and what we want for our lives. I suppose it is all relative to the experience but even a bad experience can teach us something and we can come away much stronger because of it.