What It Takes To Move On

"Sometimes I remember the darkness of my past / Bringing back these memories I wish I didn't have / Sometimes I think of letting go / And never looking back / And never moving forward so there'd never be a past"

- Linkin Park, "Easier To Run"

"Memories have left you broken / And the scars have never healed / The emptiness in you is growing / With so little left to fill / You're scared to look back on the days before / You're too tired to move on / And now you think that you're the only one who doesn't have to / Have to try and you won't / Have to fail / If you're afraid to fly / Then I guess you never will / You hide behind your walls of maybe nevers / Forgetting that there's something more / Than just knowing better / Your mistakes do not define you now / They tell you who you're not / You've got to live this life you're given / Like it's the only one you've got"

- 3 Doors Down, "It's the Only One You've Got"

The past. We all know the famous quote from the Spanish philosopher George Santayana, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." Prentice Hall, McDougall Littel, and many more companies in the education industry have used this aphorism as a raison d'être for their history texts. "Learn the past," they urge their student readers, with the implication that somehow, the answers for the future are found in the dark chapters of history.

I do not believe that this is how George Santayana wanted the truth of his words to be applied. The answers for the future cannot be found in the past. We make an idol of the past if we sacrifice our future to preserving the effects of hurts, mistakes, and scars of pain long ago. In fact, if we live in and for the past... Then it's no longer "past." It is the constant, inescapable, imprisoning present. And our mistakes are no longer "mistakes," but inexpungibly part of our character. And so, we live in our own prison.

A wise person remembers the past so that the past does not become the present. A wise person looks back on past mistakes for the purpose of not allowing those mistakes to become part of him. A wise man does not live in the past. A wise person does not sacrifice his future to the idol of the past. A wise person lives in the present, looking forward, moving forward...