This line of thought suffocates me. I get consumed with it and my parenting response to being consumed and suffocated with things I can't undo is to either disengage or get overly agitated about being perfect. No one here has said that (the opposite actually - which is good) but I thought I'd share this poem. It is hanging on my wall at work so I can read it before I go home.
Start Where You Stand by Berton Braley
Start where you stand and never mind the past,
The past won't help you in beginning new,
If you have left it all behind at last
Why, that's enough, you're done with it, you're through;
This is another chapter in the book,
This is another race that you have planned,
Don't give the vanished days a backward look,
Start where you stand.
The world won't care about your old defeats
If you can start anew and win success;
The future is your time, and time is fleet
And there is much of work and strain and stress;
Forget the buried woes and dead despairs,
Here is a brand-new trial right at hand,
The future is for him who does and dares,
Start where you stand.
Old failures will not halt, old triumphs aid,
To-day's the thing, to-morrow soon will be;
Get in the fight and face it unafraid,
And leave the past to ancient history,
What has been, has been; yesterday is dead
And by it you are neither blessed nor banned;
Take courage, man, be brave and drive ahead,
Start where you stand.
Here is another short one I have at home. When the old tapes start playing (about screwed up yesterdays and fatalistic tomorrows) I go read this - to replace them and get back into the present, which is actually quite good if I don't muck it up, haha.
"One day at a time - this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering." Ida Scott Taylor.
I use the serenity prayer a lot too. They replace the endless awfulizing loops with more positive ones
