Making Peace

There’s the need to make peace with the past in order to properly embrace the future. Deserting what is gone whilst keeping a focus on what’s ahead is in itself a denial of what is ahead. It’s like desiring to quench one’s thirst without accepting the element of thirst. You must make peace with your thirst. Through that, you can graciously accept water when it is offered. Should we just forget our past and sweep everything under the carpet? Should we behave like ostriches, creating illusions unto ourselves—that, what glaringly stares us in the face is no more? We must embrace the fact that we used to be poor but are now rich. We used to be abused but are now liberated. We used to be abusers but are now reformed. That is the surest way to assess our very selves in the journey of change and progress. That’s the only way we can change our routes after recognizing we took the wrong turn. The past may have passed but not gone. It still forms part of our life’s fabric—sometimes, the foundation itself. The yardstick with which change and growth are measured is the previous. Must we forget and forge ahead or learn and forge ahead? Making peace with the past means recognizing the past as an element which can positively or negatively affect the future we yearn for. This can influence our resolve to reach out or not to water when it is offered to us.