Embrace the Now

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be?

It’s an interesting question. Would it be a bad relationship, a decision that caused someone great pain, maybe a bad business decision?

My answer is nothing. I would change nothing from my past. Now, that is not to say that there is nothing in my past that I regret. There are plenty of things I regret happening. However I recognize these things as steps along the path. (I know, there goes the path analogy again!)

I have some wonderful things in my life. Would I have those things if I changed the past?

Much of who I am today developed during the time I spent living in Arizona. I was exposed to many experiences, cultures, people and religion that I would not have had anywhere else in the world. If I chose to change my past to eliminate my first marriage, I would also have to give up all the experiences that resulted from that event. I likely would never have ended up in Arizona, much less spent 7 years there. Would I still resonate so strongly with the cultures of the Southwest? Would I have ever done the work that I did with the disabled? Would I truly know what miracles my children are?

Sure, it is possible that the universe would have provided me with those experiences anyways but I think it is far more likely that my other decisions would have led me to different experiences that would have shaped me differently. I would be a different person. Maybe I would be a better person, maybe a worse, but I do know that I would not be ME if it wasn’t for each and every decision, be it good or bad, that I made up until this point.

Just as a weaver does not unravel an entire tapestry because of a single mistake, I choose to leave my decisions as they are and embrace who I am and who I will become.

Embrace the now and do not dwell on the past.

What about you? If you could change one thing from your past what would it be??