I’m an optimist. I have been for as long as I can remember, and I like to think about the future and the great things that are yet to take place. I really do believe that the best is yet to come – for you, for me, for our country, and for the world at large.

My pessimistic friends think that I’m naive, unrealistic, or just foolish. That’s OK, I’m not in a popularity contest. I choose to be an optimist.

One thing I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the idea of “going back.” While it is physically impossible to “go back” in time, how many people do you know that spend most of their waking hours reflecting on the past? A lot of folks are either wishing they were back at a favorite time or place in their life, regretting something they did in the past, or re-living a painful memory.

None of these are healthy or productive behaviors, and I believe that we can condition ourselves to put our thoughts to the present moment, and making plans for the future, anticipating or expecting better things yet to come.

Several years ago I went through a painful divorce, and while trying to rebuild myself as a middle aged, bald headed, lonely single guy, I got a Facebook connection request from a previous girlfriend from high school.  I was really in love with this girl some 30 years earlier, and we had no contact since we broke up. After connecting on Facebook and then several phone calls, I learned that she was also divorced, and our mutual attraction immediately fired up. I don’t know about her, but when I heard her voice and her sweet giggle, I was teleported back to the 17 year old guy dating her. The memories were vivid and energizing!

We soon arranged a date, and I drove across several states to see her.  My anticipation grew with each mile, and couldn’t wait to be back in her arms. I thought that this is how it works – previous high school romance reunited after three decades apart. I’d heard of other similar stories, and was thrilled that this was now happening to me.  Lucky guy I am!!

The fairy tale romance that I so strongly imagined soon ended.  The lady was not the same girl that I remembered from school.  I was not the same guy that she remembered from school. We had nothing in common, and had grown apart in so many different ways. While our teenage memories were strongly intact, our present realities told a completely different story. I sadly drove back home, across several states, learning first-hand an important life lesson.

I can’t go back.

I can’t go back in time and recreate a blissful memory from my childhood.

I can’t go back to an old neighborhood and expect life to be the same as it was before.

I can’t go back to an old job that I loved and expect things to be the same.

Life keeps moving forward. I get one day older, and hopefully wiser and better, each and every day.

So do you.

Let’s resist the temptation to fixate on the past. There’s no value in reflecting on our bad memories from the past, and no benefit from wishing the good memories of the past were still in our present.

Instead, let’s all focus on the beauty of the current moment, which is all we really have anyway, and learn from the past as we make plans for a beautiful future.

This is my plan, and I hope yours as well.

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