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Do You Drag Your Past Into Your Future?

By Len Stauffenger

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Published: 28May2008
Word count: 965
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Most people spend the majority of their time in the past. Because that is where they spend most of their time, that becomes what is most important to them. From living in the past, they avoid the present; they emphasize their guilt from past failures and, therefore, they are sure they have to pay for these failures in the future; or, they dwell on past hurts or perceived insults. In those situations, they may be thinking of how they can even the score. In either case, the past is dictating the future.

The present, the now, the in-the-moment, gets lost. The present is mostly used as a reminder of past injuries or failures. You then react to things that occur to you in the present as if you were in the past. If in your mind you're in the past, the past then dictates your reactions to people and events in the present.

When your thinking is about the past, that is your point of reference, and whoever you're dealing with has a big problem because you're not seeing or hearing him accurately. Instead, you're hearing echoes from the past. Those echoes carry pain in your mind and justify your attacks in the present in return for a past no one else sees and for whom it doesn't exist. Do you see how the past can dictate your future? Think of all the opportunities you could be missing out on.

Here's an example of something that happened to me just a few months ago. My family decided to meet at a small, local Italian restaurant to eat dinner. We went in separate cars and my younger daughter was in my car with me.

Just as each of you has done hundreds of times, we were making small talk, and were pretty much oblivious to everything around us. As we parked the car, a minivan zoomed into the parking space next to mine, slammed on his brakes, got out and started walking toward the restaurant. He parked so close to my car I literally could not get out of the car. Before he got away I asked him if he could move his car because I couldn't get out. I said it nice, honest. (I remember I wanted to be a smart aleck about it, but I held back).

He stalked back to his car, yelled something to me about it wouldn't have been so tight if I had parked in the space correctly then, as he pulled away his side view mirror hit my mirror and he zoomed back into the parking spot. Now I wanted to knock him out. My daughter, sweet little thing that she is, was encouraging me to knock him out. But I'm too old to be fighting. I'm a lover, not a fighter, or at least I hope so. We walked into the restaurant and, of course, we told the rest of the family what happened. Ironically, they knew who we were talking about because they saw him storm into the restaurant and, in their words "He was nasty to his wife."

It's a harmless example, but the point is that he was obviously living in the past. I don't know what had him upset. His past almost dictated an ass whipping. (I am bigger than he is.)

That's just an example to get you to look at your own situation so you don't make mistakes like that. Think of the times when you overreacted because your son left dirty underwear on the floor or your daughter left wet towels on the bathroom floor. You're overreacting because you're really reacting to something from the past - something he's done dozens of times before, or something he'd done earlier in the day that upset you.

If he had left his underwear on the floor dozens of times before, then you have to improve your parenting skills. You might be yelling at him about it, but there have obviously not been any consequences for it. Kids respond marvelously to consequences.

Let me give you another perspective. There's a company called The Landmark Corporation which does a wonderful job of teaching people different techniques for avoiding problems like this. They will tell you that when you have a conversation with someone, you should come from nothing.

When I first heard them talking about communicating from nothing I thought, "Whoa, I'm paying for this?" Then I started to get it and I hope, in light of the above discussion, it makes sense to you. Come from nothing. In other words, don't assume anything and don't bring past history into this current episode. This is not easy to do, but once you get the hang of it, you'd be amazed at how much you were missing. We usually go into conversations with an agenda or a prejudice - some point we want to make, or information we want to get.

Try having a conversation with someone without trying to be right, without an agenda, without assuming you know what they want. Initially, you won't be able to do this in every conversation but if you just do it once, you'll get it and you'll be really impressed with how positive it can be. And then you can do it more and more often. Once you get it, it's the beginning of listening. It's also a big step toward giving up living in the past and living in the present. Once you can let go of perceived insults, when you live in the present, you get to create your future. The past is no longer dictating your future.

Len Stauffenger's parents taught him life's simple wisdom. As a divorced dad, he wanted to share that simple wisdom with his girls. "Getting Over It: Wisdom for Divorced Parents," his book, is the solution. Len is an author, a Success Coach and an Attorney. http://www.wisdomfordivorcedparents.com

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