You know what? We’re all really quite similar to each other. All of us.

Hold on, because I am not trying to stomp on your uniqueness. I’d never do that. Truth is, you’ve got gifts and talents that only you possess that this world really needs. You are, without a doubt, an unrepeatable gift to this world.

Read that last sentence again…unrepeatable. Yes you are.

But as unique as your gifts and talents are and as unrepeatable as you are, there is so much more about you and me and the rest of the world that is the same.  I’m not referring to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, though I’m certainly not discounting it either. I’m talking about how we all have a thing or two that we aren’t all that proud of in our pasts. 

I know I’ve got quite a list and it ranges from tiny snafus that make me blush and giggle and from there it goes all the way over to serious breaches that make me wish I could go back in time and have a do-over…or find someplace to hide.

We’ve all got them.

Thoughts and memories from our pasts that make us cringe with various degrees of embarrassment, humiliation, or shame. And no matter where they fall on the “oh crap!” scale, they hold us back.

They hold us back until:

• We tell ourselves the truth about how much we all share in the “oh crap!” experience of life and begin to see there’s no reason to feel so isolated and alone.
• We totally, fully and finally accept the fact that we cannot change one thing about the past. (Insert  swear word here.)
• We allow ourselves the freedom to focus not on the unchangeable past, but on our future and who we want to become.
• We choose to value the life we have left to live and accept our responsibility in creating it. 

Because when we do that, we realize that what matters most is not in the past but what we do next.

What you do next matters.

Will you allow yourself to make one decision at a time that moves you closer to the person you most want to be?

What choice can you make, right now, that honors the life you want to live and the person you want to be?

We’ve all got pasts. But when it comes to this moment, they are not what matters.

What you do next matters.