I got passed over for a job that I was more than qualified for (or so I thought) and at first it bothered me. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why they chose someone else when I was right there, giddy with excitement and qualifications. I figured perhaps it was because I didn’t look a certain way or wasn’t cantankerous enough but those feelings of disappointment with the ‘kingmakers’ quickly dissipated.
After a day, I wasn’t even thinking about that job or that I hadn’t been picked. Not that my interest in the job was not real. It was, but life teaches you to pick which fights to linger over and which ones to move on from swiftly. I picked the latter. Same thing happens for friendships.
Until recently, I used to berate myself for failing to make a friendship work for eternity. Until it was obvious that there are certain friendships and acquaintances that when they have outlived their usefulness, trying to hold on to them to make them work is fool’s errand. Some just turn toxic or outrightly detrimental to your mental health and self-esteem. This is not to say that we should dismiss things and people on a whim, no. It is to know when to move on or rearrange our list of priorities. Celebrate the past but don’t be too stuck in it to realise that seasons change, people change, and even you change.
Every morning deserves its own fresh cup of tea or juice. Imagine if you always drunk the previous morning’s leftovers as breakfast for another day, it wouldn’t be exactly what you’d call a fresh start. Or wearing the same clothes the next morning and yet all you have to do is pick a fresh change of clothes from wherever it is that you stash them. So I look fondly or not so fondly on my yesterdays (people, jobs, etc.) but refuse to be stuck there.
So yesterday sucked, you messed up. But even the deepest most painful death can’t be mourned forever if you intend to live a fully functional life ahead. So if you can, fix yesterday’s mishaps, if you can’t, count your loss and move on swiftly to the next crazy thing waiting for you.
Yes, I know life is so much easier when you have control. When you know for a fact how you want to spend the rest of your life, with whom and where. Not simply out of duty but because that is what you want and because you can. But that’s not the way life is, at least not for the most of us. We rarely have full control. Thankfully, God does. That alone should be motivation enough to choose to do life by living in the present (not yesterday) and doing your best to make it count.