My Past Is Not My Future

"I am leaving this place now, letting go of all my fears, saying goodbye to the memories I hold dear. I can finally breathe again, it's a new day fair well past, as I close this chapter I say free at last." Damita Haddon

In the words of Pop Star singer Brittany Spears Oops I did it again. Yes, I have been down this road before. It seems as if every time I try to move forward, I allow my past to pull me back. The problem is I have changed as a person, I'm not the man that I used to be. However, the people that I have surrounded myself with has not changed. Thus they only can see the old me, and not the new person I have become.

While reading a good friend's blog posting it became evident to me that in order to move forward in your life sometimes you have to let go and remove yourself from certain "nouns" (people, places and things). In order to move forward sometimes you have to let go of your past. The only way to do so is by forgetting those former things. Removing yourself from those old bad habits and surrounding yourself around new positive people, places and things.

Change can only come from a new mindset, and in order to have a new mindset, you must leave those things of the past. If you were raised as a child in a low income neighborhood, you can not expect to be a millionaire, live in a great neighborhood, but still hang and run with your old low income neighborhood boys. Its like oil and water, it will not mix. My grandmother use to always tell me, be careful of the company you keep, be careful of the environments you surround yourself in, be careful of those things that seem good, but do not benefit you, because at the end of the day all of these things, make you who you are. Remember the saying "birds of a feather, flock together?"

Whoopi Goldberg instructed us in the blockbuster movie Sister Act II "if you want to be somebody, if you want to go somewhere, you better wake up and pay attention". Paul takes on a similar ideology as he writes his letter to the Philippi believers by expressing to them "Brothers, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth towards those things which are before" Philippians 3:13. If you want more and better for yourself, we must let go of those former things. Whether they are hurts, fears, or relationships, we must bury them and never dig them back up again. Our friends have to change, our mindset has to change, our environments have to change in order to be free from your past. So the next time you feel like something is holding you back, take a look at the things of your past, i guarantee once you begin to let go of those former things, you' ll be free to move forward, I plan to. What about you?