Lesson Learned

It has taken me 40+ years, ok I am 45.  Or I might be 46.  It’s 2014 and I was born in 67. You do the math since math is not the subject of said lesson learned.   I could just say it has taken my a lifetime to learn my lesson, but where is the humor is in that?  The long and the short of it is that life is short, even when it seems long.  I have made many mistakes along the way and of course wish that I hadn’t, but then where would the lesson be in that?  You are probably thinking that I have learned to ask questions, but that isn’t it.  If you had been with me along the ride, or were watching from the side lines, you would have most likely shook you head in exasperation watching me, over and over, making mistake after mistake.  For me it wasn’t the mistakes that were the problem, but how the mistakes affected me.  Tearing me down, discouraging me, and straight depressing me along the way.  A mistake became a means for judging too critically and further disappointment in myself.  So with each mistake along the way, my feelings of failure grew exponentially.  Unhappiness for me was habitual.

Now I can’t really tell you what happened or exactly where the turning point was, but I’ve adopted a new outlook.  All those mistakes were not mistakes in the true sense of the word.  They were choices that I made.  I don’t regret the past.  I am just more knowledgeable on things I don’t want to do again.

Here is the mistake perspective….….I believed things would get better than they were.  This grew into thinking things would change if I just wished it so.  This grew into staying in a situation after I knew it was time to move on.  All of this was because I kept thinking things were better than they were and thinking that I could change my perspective enough to believe that things didn’t need to change.  Maybe I was just lazy.

Here is a new perspective..…..If I am unhappy, then I get to change it.  The trick is knowing if things can change or if it is time to cut my losses and move on.  So how do I say this…..I have lowered my tolerance level.   I have a zero tolerance for bullshit.  Just like mom always said, ‘what you see is what you get.’

My lesson is the chicken soup of pop psychology….

Life is too short to spend another minute unhappy.  Life is for living, not regretting the past. 

As Don Juan encouraged Carlos Castaneda, “We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”   I wished I had known that sooner.