A Visit to the Dark Side

There's a lot to be said for positive thinking. It's much more fun looking at what's right, than at what's wrong, for example. It also sets the tone for our mindset, thereby influencing the direction in which our body will move (internally as well as externally). Dwelling on the negative exposes flaws in our life, errors in our judgment, mistakes in our behavior. Who needs that when we can put a smile on our face, wave our arms about in delight, dance to a merry tune and look for rainbows in a graying sky or count stars at night? Who needs that?

We all do. A doctor can't clean a wound, let alone suture it, without first examining it to determine what caused it, why, and how recurrence can be avoided in the future.

In order to achieve a goal, success strategies recommend visualizing the future. It's an empowering technique. However, the past has lessons to teach us. Here's an interesting set of questions: Why haven't you already achieved the goal? What has been holding you back? How can trying again be different from past attempts? If you can identify the obstacles that stand behind you, you can avoid similar obstacles that lie ahead of you. Skip this step and you are more likely to simply repeat and relive the past rather than making the progress that carries you closer to your goal.

If you aren't willing to get down and dirty, you cannot look up at the underbelly of the failure beast (where it is most vulnerable to attack). You'll see and process only surface features-- what it wants you to see -- that which can do it no harm and do you no good. When you engage, you think you're wrestling it, but you're merely playing the role it has assigned you in the dance it has choreographed.

We should never become a prisoner of our past. But we should be a vigilant visitor. Recognize its sore spots, scars, and sources of vulnerability. We can lie on our backs and watch as the beast leaps over us, and we can be ever ready to roll to the side if it attempts to settle down upon us to hold us trapped. We need to be in control of it, and not let it take control of us.

But we cannot ignore it, look away to focus on a prettier future that exists only in our imagination because doing so is less painful than looking back at what has been our reality. We have to be willing to take the proverbial two steps backward before we take one, then two, then three steps forward. Life has many dimensions. Embracing life means exploring all of them.