The benefit of long road trips is that you get to do both a lot of listening and a lot of thinking. While I spent more than my fair share of hours on I-95 this weekend I reflected a lot on the past, the present, and what I expect of the future. I realized that we shape ourselves based on the tapes we have played in our minds. We all have these mental tapes, and we are all actors playing the roles that we have assigned ourselves in these stories.
The problem is, these tapes lie. Your tapes determine your expectations of yourself, and depending upon the experiences of your past, you very well may have warped tapes that confine you to average living. Anytime that we suffer a disappoint, or personal failure, subconsciously they get etched into a tape, into our memories and into our futures. We play these tapes over and over, not realizing the shackles we are putting on ourselves by allowing our past to predict our future.
Dispense of your past tapes; let them go. There is no reason why any “failures” of your past should predict or dictate the path of your future. Everyday we are granted the gift of a blank tape — a fresh start to life and to maximizing ourselves, the only thing holding us back is our own selves. Forgive yourself for your past disappointments, learn from them, thank yourself for them, and accept that you are no longer bound to your past. There is great freedom in letting go of the false prescribed identities that hold you back: you can do and be anything you set your mind to. Believe it.