A hopeful, healing look at Confucius’s wisdom on family and emotional inheritance — and how we can honor the past without passing its wounds forward.
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Today’s Poem: The Two Rivers by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The Two Rivers
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Slowly the hour-hand of the clock moves round;
So slowly that no human eye hath power
To see it move! Slowly in shine or shower
The painted ship above it, homeward bound,
Sails, but seems motionless, as if aground;
Yet both arrive at last; and in his tower
The slumberous watchman wakes and strikes the hour,
A mellow, measured, melancholy sound.
Midnight! the outpost of advancing day!
The frontier town and citadel of night!
The watershed of Time, from which the streams
Of Yesterday and To-morrow take their way,
One to the land of promise and of light,
One to the land of darkness and of dreams!
II.
O River of Yesterday, with current swift
Through chasms descending, and soon lost to sight,
I do not care to follow in their flight
The faded leaves, that on thy bosom drift!
O River of To-morrow, I uplift
Mine eyes, and thee I follow, as the night
Wanes into morning, and the dawning light
Broadens, and all the shadows fade and shift!
I follow, follow, where thy waters run
Through unfrequented, unfamiliar fields,
Fragrant with flowers and musical with song;
Still follow, follow; sure to meet the sun,
And confident, that what the future yields
Will be the right, unless myself be wrong.
III.
Yet not in vain, O River of Yesterday,
Through chasms of darkness to the deep descending,
I heard thee sobbing in the rain, and blending
Thy voice with other voices far away.
I called to thee, and yet thou wouldst not stay,
But turbulent, and with thyself contending,
And torrent-like thy force on pebbles spending,
Thou wouldst not listen to a poet’s lay.
Thoughts, like a loud and sudden rush of wings,
Regrets and recollections of things past,
With hints and prophecies of things to be,
And inspirations, which, could they be things,
And stay with us, and we could hold them fast,
Were our good angels,–these I owe to thee.
IV.
And thou, O River of To-morrow, flowing
Between thy narrow adamantine walls,
But beautiful, and white with waterfalls,
And wreaths of mist, like hands the pathway showing;
I hear the trumpets of the morning blowing,
I hear thy mighty voice, that calls and calls,
And see, as Ossian saw in Morven’s halls,
Mysterious phantoms, coming, beckoning, going!
It is the mystery of the unknown
That fascinates us; we are children still,
Wayward and wistful; with one hand we cling
To the familiar things we call our own,
And with the other, resolute of will,
Grope in the dark for what the day will bring.
Inspiring Quote: Making Peace with the Past
If you don’t make peace with your past it will keep showing up in your present. ~ Wayne Dyer
Today’s Thought: Possibilities Overflow for Us
“Every moment is a new beginning.” ~ Elie Wiesel
Every moment is new to us. Whatever just happened is over. It’s new all over again. When we experience new, we are given a chance to begin again. When we experience new, we are no longer prisoners to what was. Holding on to the past is a fallacy in the same way waiting for something without putting in the effort to make it happen or acquire it isa fallacy. We’ll have enough challenges with our encounter with the new, no sense in taking all the challenges, hurts, and betrayals from the past along for the ride. Holding onto grudges and grievances sucks the energy out of the new we encounter. The new we encounter overflows with possibilities for us.
Thinking Out Loud
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
NOTE: Whether things go good or bad for us there’s no way we can hold onto them, we’re obligated to leave the past behind and move on. Our destiny lies ahead of us. If we linger in the past, we may miss the opportunity to become what we are capable of becoming. The world will miss our gift. Let go of the past, let go the things that get you down, think only of moving ahead, reaching the goal for which you are destined to reach.
The Past: A Poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Past
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The debt is paid,
The verdict said,
The Furies laid,
The plague is stayed,
All fortunes made;
Turn the key and bolt the door,
Sweet is death forevermore.
Nor haughty hope, nor swart chagrin,
Nor murdering hate, can enter in.
All is now secure and fast;
Not the gods can shake the Past;
Flies-to the adamantine door
Bolted down forevermore.
None can re-enter there,—
No thief so politic,
No Satan with a royal trick
Steal in by window, chink, or hole,
To bind or unbind, add what lacked,
Insert a leaf, or forge a name,
New-face or finish what is packed,
Alter or mend eternal Fact.
Something to Think About ~ Keep Looking Ahead
Victor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning speaks of prisoners who gave up all hope, “A man who let himself decline because he could not see any future goal found himself occupied with retrospective thoughts. . . . They preferred to close their eyes, and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of these experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge, and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.” Pps. 82-83
Note: Frankl’s description of the prisoners is applicable to us. We need to find meaning in our lives, in our everyday actions. When we don’t have meaning in our lives we, like the prisoners Frankl describes, live in the past when we replay grievances and fail to forgive. When we let go of those things that continue to drag us into the past it is easier to get engaged in something meaningful (there are an infinite number of possibilities) keeping an eye on tomorrow. Keep looking ahead, never backward.
Positive Thought For the Day ~ Live Now
You can live in the past, or you can live in the present but you cannot live in both. Living takes place in the present with an eye toward tomorrow. Be grateful for what was and move on. Life calls us to live and enjoy the moment, to continually grow, and learn from every experience.
Poem of the Day ~ Always
Always
Pablo Neruda
I am not jealous
of what came before me.
Come with a man
on your shoulders,
come with a hundred men in your hair,
come with a thousand men between your breasts and your feet,
come like a river
full of drowned men
which flows down to the wild sea,
to the eternal surf, to Time!
Bring them all
to where I am waiting for you;
we shall always be alone,
we shall always be you and I
alone on earth,
to start our life!
Feeling Good Tip of the Day ~ Close the Door to the Past
Yesterday is Over – It’s All About Today & Tomorrow
To live a stress-free life, you have to stop living in your past. I know it seems like fun to compare everything in your present to your past, and to experience the present through past-colored glasses, but it actually isn’t.
When you wear past-colored glasses, you can’t truly experience the present for what it is. Your boyfriend or girlfriend gets compared to a list of expectations and failed relationships rather than recognized for the unique blessing they are in your life. Your boss gets compared to all the bosses who came before her. Your friends’ ability to parent gets compared to your parents’ ability to parent.
Everyone deserves to stand on their own past-free merit.
NOTE: We frequently accept rules about the past that determine how we live today. If the rules are no longer valid, drop them quicker than you would drop a burning hot charcoal.
