As I reclined in the passenger seat of my '07 Pontiac Vibe enjoying some much-needed rest and jamming with the BF to Darius Rucker's new album, I caught myself staring at the rear view mirror. As it blurred in and out of focus, I started to internalize the mirror's robotic slogan that we can all recite from memory: "Objects in mirror are closer than they appear".
This simple phrase has been around so long that to most of us it's just a string of meaningless letters. But if you think about it as something new ... perhaps a proverb or a chapter title in a Mitch Albom book, it starts to take a different, more meaningful shape.
Let me explain. We are so often inundated by quotes, cover photos and instagram/beautiful mess pics telling us to forget the past, never look back, throw off the bowlines, shoot for the moon, etc. etc. And yes, it's important to be forward-looking and strive to be better than the person that you were yesterday, but what about using the past to our advantage instead of forgetting it altogether?
This is where our all-caps Arial proverb comes into play. Can't it be argued that the past is always closer than it appears? And furthermore, in order to stop, turn, or change lanes on this highway that we call life, should we not be paying closer attention to the things behind us that have gotten us this far?
To be honest, I'm not sure. There are some parts of my past that I never want to think about for the rest of my life. But, then again, every single moment that I've experienced in my 25 years of life represents a thread, no matter how small, in the fabric of my being.
So today, I want you to think about those objects that you see when you look in your life's rear view mirror. Really look at them... no matter how far you want them to be in your past, take the time to truly see how close they are to the amazing person that you're becoming. Let them empower you to throw off the bowlines and *insert other boating analogy here*. Keep them with you as you grow with every experience, knowing that today is but tomorrow's yesterday... and each is equally important to who you truly are.
"We are a product of our past but we don't have to be prisoners of it." - Rick Warren
This simple phrase has been around so long that to most of us it's just a string of meaningless letters. But if you think about it as something new ... perhaps a proverb or a chapter title in a Mitch Albom book, it starts to take a different, more meaningful shape.
Let me explain. We are so often inundated by quotes, cover photos and instagram/beautiful mess pics telling us to forget the past, never look back, throw off the bowlines, shoot for the moon, etc. etc. And yes, it's important to be forward-looking and strive to be better than the person that you were yesterday, but what about using the past to our advantage instead of forgetting it altogether?
This is where our all-caps Arial proverb comes into play. Can't it be argued that the past is always closer than it appears? And furthermore, in order to stop, turn, or change lanes on this highway that we call life, should we not be paying closer attention to the things behind us that have gotten us this far?
To be honest, I'm not sure. There are some parts of my past that I never want to think about for the rest of my life. But, then again, every single moment that I've experienced in my 25 years of life represents a thread, no matter how small, in the fabric of my being.
So today, I want you to think about those objects that you see when you look in your life's rear view mirror. Really look at them... no matter how far you want them to be in your past, take the time to truly see how close they are to the amazing person that you're becoming. Let them empower you to throw off the bowlines and *insert other boating analogy here*. Keep them with you as you grow with every experience, knowing that today is but tomorrow's yesterday... and each is equally important to who you truly are.
"We are a product of our past but we don't have to be prisoners of it." - Rick Warren