Over the last two months or so I have been stressing over a situation I got myself into. Yes, it didn't JUST happen as I would want to convince myself. Btw, I have really tried encouraging myself that it was not in my control to determine the outcome but guess what; that's a lie from the devil!!!! Hehehe. It was a result of a series of poor choices I made - with my head high up in the clouds of course lol. You have no idea how much I wished to have a Time-Travel Machine so I could go back in time and make different choices or have Super powers to completely erase what happened. That aside, I've been really hard on myself struggling to wrap my head around the fact that an intelligent, straight thinking Karsh can make such a costly dumb blunder. Spending each waking moment replaying in my mind how 'ish' hit the fan & trying to rationalize my choice of words/actions & wondering who the fish was that??? That birthed a never ending cycle of self pity, self beat down, regret, wishful thinking and an extreme of emotional melt down. This cycle was however brought to an unceremonious end this morning as I was FootSubishing to the office. For the first time in a long while I was able to laugh at my silliness. Well, I did not just laugh but I Laughed Out loud LOL. {I'm sure other passers-by & motorists were wondering if I had lost it}. But you know what, I felt pretty AMAZING after that 10 Minute Laughfest. I felt such a release of all the tension & negative energy I had been bottling up inside. Needless to say, I spent the rest of my day on a high - at some point I actually suspected I might have unknowingly indulged in some banned substances. Picked 3 important life lesson from this, in no particular order :-).
Live - For those couple of months I had forgotten what it felt like to just be happy, what it felt like to embrace the Joy of the Lord every morning. Imagine waking up every single day and instead of enjoying the gift of being alive another day, I would whine and mumble about how it was just another day for me to be reminded of my silly mistake *Sigh*. I stressed so much about why I did not act differently and would automatically get into self beat down mode. Pleasantries became a bother and I slowly became a loner - I preferred my own company so I could wallow in self pity. Random plots that I love took a back seat and I would hurriedly rush back home to the comfort of my four walls away from prying eyes. For some reason, I kinda felt that everyone I interacted with knew I had blundered & were laughing at me {You know that ka-evil laugh of - I told you so, that one!!!} and I couldn't stand it. I was living the present controlled by events/decisions of the past. I was letting past mistakes negatively affect me instead of learning and letting the lesson & not the mistake dictate how I lived. Thing is, you cannot hide or run away from your past but next time you wanna let your past ruin your present & negatively affect how your future plays out, remember - Isaiah 43:18 -19 "Do not remember the former things, or ponder the things of the past. Listen carefully, I am about to do a new thing, now it will spring forth, will you not be aware of it? I will even put a road in the wilderness, rivers in the desert." Finally Steve Maraboli rightly quotes, "We all make mistakes, have struggles, and even regret things in our past. But you are not your mistakes, you are not your struggles, you are here now with the power to shape your day & future."
Laugh - "We take ourselves way too seriously, and we don't take God seriously enough. It is not by accident that humor and humility come from the same root word. If you can laugh at yourself, you'll always have plenty of good material", Rick Warren. Don't take yourself too seriously, allow yourself an opportunity to laugh - laugh till your belly aches; laugh till you shed tears & then laugh a little more :-). "Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be amused", unknown. Proverbs 17:22 "A Happy heart is good medicine and a joyful mind causes healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones."
Learn - "You cannot travel back in time to fix your mistakes, but you can learn from them & forgive yourself for not knowing better."
Laugh - "We take ourselves way too seriously, and we don't take God seriously enough. It is not by accident that humor and humility come from the same root word. If you can laugh at yourself, you'll always have plenty of good material", Rick Warren. Don't take yourself too seriously, allow yourself an opportunity to laugh - laugh till your belly aches; laugh till you shed tears & then laugh a little more :-). "Blessed are we who can laugh at ourselves, for we shall never cease to be amused", unknown. Proverbs 17:22 "A Happy heart is good medicine and a joyful mind causes healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones."
Learn - "You cannot travel back in time to fix your mistakes, but you can learn from them & forgive yourself for not knowing better."