Tag: past

Writing a Letter to Your Future Self: Love Who You’ll Become

“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.” ~Chinese Proverb

Yes, I had reached the age of twenty-five. Still, I doubted this letter from my past would make it to me, all these years later. It was a simple creative writing assignment from when I was fifteen.

The teacher collected our letters to our future ourselves in self-addressed envelopes with stamps and promised to mail them ten years later. But, so much time had passed; would he keep his word? Would he even remember?

Thinking back on the letter, I tried to remember writing it. I vaguely recalled giving my future self some advice.

In my recollection, my fifteen-year-old self wanted to make sure I would continue to write and figure skate, and she probably assumed I’d be married and have a baby by now.

When you’re fifteen years old, twenty-five seems like a grown-up age, but I wasn’t feeling as grown up as I believed my younger self expected me to be.

Then, on a family vacation in San Diego, my parents brought me the mail from home. And in scrawled ink, there was a letter addressed to myself. I knew it was the one! I laughed delightedly and could not believe what was in my hands. I opened it eagerly and was astounded by the results.

The letter began in true, snarky fifteen-year-old fashion: “How much do you bet that this letter will never get to you?”

It continued to greet me casually as if we were having an IM chat.

Here are two key nuggets from the essence of the letter, which I found salient and beautiful: (more…)

January 17, 2013
More Peace and Connection: Recreating a Simpler Time

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” ~Robert Brault

Yesterday, as my boyfriend and I were driving home from a quick trip to Vegas, we saw a sign for a ghost town and decided to do some exploring.

I’ve always loved the idea of a ghost town—a place left untouched for years, still reflecting the people who once inhabited it, as if they’d just picked up and left mere moments ago.

Though aged with cobwebs, marred by neglect, and long since deprived of life and laughter, it would seem like time had stood still. I imagined it would feel a lot like Thoreau’s cabin in the woods: minimal, modest, and quaint.

In our high-tech, fast-paced world, very little feels simple. And while I love my home and environment in Los Angeles, I often long to find places that feel charming and uncomplicated.

We quickly found it wasn’t a village left untouched for exploring, though much of it looked how it once did; it was a small slice of the land commercialized with little tiny shops, as is the American way.

Still, I enjoyed roaming through the surrounding mountains and seeing nostalgic pieces within and outside the cottages—a few wooden carriages, an oil burning stove, and a deep claw foot tub.

While walking around, I asked my boyfriend if he’d ever fantasized about living in a small village, with a self-contained community of people who all knew and supported each other.

It’s something I’ve always romanticized. Instead of living in the hustle and bustle of our modern world, always consuming and pushing for the next big thing, we’d create with our hands and spend more time enjoying life’s simple pleasures together.

We’d have access to everything we need within close proximity, and the vast world made seemingly larger through the web would shrink in feel and yet expand in possibilities.

Not possibilities for earning money and succeeding professionally; possibilities for childlike joy and meaningful connection—the human wealth our tribal ancestors once enjoyed, before everything got bigger, faster, and automated. (more…)

September 25, 2012
The Right Direction: Releasing the Past and Getting Unstuck

“If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.” ~Proverb

It’s been a year since I stumbled upon Tiny Buddha. At the time I was in a difficult place, emotionally, mentally, and physically.

I felt as if life was pointless and that there was nothing for me in the world: no room, no hope, no opportunity, no relief from the chronic tiredness and pain, and no love. I’d given up.

I spent my days staring at the walls and at my computer, trying to find something to make me feel better, to feel anything at all, but nothing showed up.

That was my ongoing experience, after all: nothing and nobody showed up to save me.

After seeing a quote on Twitter, I stumbled upon some of the posts about happiness. They showed me that I was allowed to have fun and experience joy.

They taught me that I didn’t have to relive a childhood that was painful and traumatic. Instead, I could live the life I’d always dreamed of since I was that lost, hurt, and lonely child; I could live it now as an adult.

The more I read, the more I started to let go of my victim mentality. I suffered a lot of mental and emotional abuse when I was young, much of it secret and still not revealed even to my family. But as I lost myself in other people’s wisdom, I opened myself up to that past and came to terms with it.

It’s taken a long time to do that, and it’s something I still do. Every day, I let go of something and move on from it.

It wasn’t long before I saw that I could write for Tiny Buddha. It took me days to hit send on that email because it felt like a major risk. But I felt determined to put myself out there, hoping that someone would recognize the good that I felt certain was in me somewhere.

This one little step was the beginning of change. (more…)

January 19, 2011
How to Let Go of the Past So It Won’t Anchor You Down

“A bend in the road is not the end of the road…unless you fail to make the turn.” ~Unknown

Let’s face it, we all dwell on the past from time to time. That’s okay—we’re human beings with emotions. As we live life and experience it to its fullest, it’s only natural that we sometimes cling onto what once was.

But when our desire to cling to the past affects our future, we begin a potentially unhealthy and seemingly endless battle with anchors that can hold us down and sink us.

For the past six years I’ve dreaded spring. While many would embrace the rain, the newborn green, and the post-winter renaissance, I’d plead with the powers that be to skip past March and April.

For me, spring is a brutal reminder of a series of unfortunate events. I experienced two subsequent losses that made me think I had to be miserable.

I carried this burden with me, letting it anchor me down, which made certain locations, dates, and possibilities “off limits.” I dreaded every arrival of spring, afraid that my emotions would spin out of control because of these anchors.

Sometimes they did, but it took me a while to realize it was because I let them.

Whether you’ve experienced a breakup, a tragic death, or a streak of bad luck, certain people, places, and things probably anchor you to the past. These tips may help you let go and move forward. (more…)

May 10, 2010
40 Ways to Use Time Wisely

“How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” ~Annie Dillard

Time. It is arguably our most valuable commodity.

Unlike treasured gems, precious metals, and any other prized possessions, time can’t be hoarded, collected, earned, or bought with hard work, money, dignity, or our soul. It slips away whether or not we choose to pack meaning into it. Use it or lose it, so goes the saying.

Though we all know how limited our lives are in the time-space continuum, we sometimes act like we don’t know the value of time. We use words like spend, kill, or waste when we speak of how we while away the finite number of hours in each day.

Time management systems abound and still, we flounder and falter at making the most of every sunrise. We plan for the future and neglect to cherish the present. We’d rather look back wistfully even though the future is full of hope.

And yet, for many of us, it seems there are not enough hours in a day. We cram all that goes with living into twenty-four hours of ticking, bargaining with Father Time, naively expecting him to budge to our willful and resolute intentions to produce more, accomplish more, be more.

We paddle in paradox, limbs flailing, trading in the quality of our lives while doggedly pursuing an idealized quality of life.

Time. Like all the treasures in the world, we can’t take it with us when we reach our final stop. Some among us may never be willing to embrace happiness in and with the time that we do have.

For the rest of us, here are ways to improve our relationship with time. (Some things may appear to be contradictory. This is a testament to the complex nature of our relationship with time.) (more…)

February 25, 2010