Moving Forward!

I am not one to give up but in this context, what are some of the things, that we need to give up, to be able to move forward.  I will deal with them in 2 days and the list as usual comprises 10 things (why is it always 10!).  First thing on the list to give up, is letting the opinions of others control your life.  We need to manage what we think about ourselves and try to do what is ultimately best for ourselves and our lives, not that which we think is best for someone else, or what others think they expect of us.  In the words of Chris Rea, "you can waste a whole lifetime trying to be what you think is expected of you, but you will never be free".  Other people's opinions of you, do not really count in the bigger scheme of things and since people are fickle and change their minds, putting too much reliance on others to make us the people we want to be, is a waste of time.  If they want to be in your life, they will make it important to them, in every area.  Secondly, we need to get rid of the shame of past failures because our past does not equal our future.  What has happened in the past cannot change what you are doing at this moment and so living in this current moment is all we have, so we should really put more attention into that, than what we may have done in the past.  We need to be brave enough to live now and get on and do it.  Thirdly, getting rid of indecision, is a key element.  The reason for this is that we will never be able to leave where we are, until we decide where we would rather be.  This is so true, but also quite difficult at times, because we may think that this new direction will be rosy, but we are just not sure if we are fully sure, that it will be better than what we have at the moment, so we use terms like "rather the devil we know than the devil we don't" and "will the grass really be greener on the other side".  But if we decide to follow a decision, then we need to do so passionately, because this will be the motivation and the confirmation that we are in the right place.  We all know that when we experience something with passion and commitment, how good it is and even though we accept our normal, it is never the same as that which we experience with passion and a real sense of purpose.  We also need to stop procrastinating over the goals that matter to us.  Call me pragmatic but everything is about a choice and we have in simplistic terms 2 choices (actually let me say that we have another 2 choices, being the primary choice of life or death, when it comes to believing - an eternal choice in other words). But for the sake of this blog the choices are to accept conditions as they are, or accept the responsibility for changing them.  It does not take much to get started on the choice, but talking about it will not get the job done.  It will ultimately take an action to change the decision from a thought or word, to a real experience.