Forgive, for the Pace of Life

Life moves extremely fast, and that means we need to make a conscious effort to pay attention to details, or it becomes easy to miss something big. It could be a person, an opportunity, or a lesson we need to learn. The reality is that we walk a very fine line in our lives between greatness and mediocrity; joy and sadness; real love and being alone – and oftentimes, it comes down to one or two major events that will determine the outcome of our entire future. We cannot assume opportunities for creating change come by very often, so we must make the best of the opportunities we do get. In order to do this, it is important to keep a clear mind and spirit so we are sharp. Keep your eyes open to the people that cross your path and the things they say or do. Study your life and study your circumstances and ask ʻwhyʼ. If our instincts are quick enough, then we can walk in faith and live to the greatest potential we have been assigned.

However, realistically, most of us are not able to live this way. We seem to always be one step slow in our own lives. We look back on mistakes and choices we made and realize too late what we should have done or could have done better. For many of us, this becomes our reality – feeling bad about ourselves for what we did or did not do. We never learn to move on and are never are able to grow past our errors in judgment.

So, what is there to do? In the story, At First Sight, the character “Adrianna” always kept the memory of her mistake with her for the rest of her life, and was never able to enjoy the life she ended up choosing because of it. It may have been a very good life. The story does not explain what her actual life was like, but the point is that Adrianna herself was not enjoying it. And just like Adrianna, NONE OF US is exempt from making mistakes or from just being too slow to react to circumstances as they come speeding to us like bullets, and the result is we beat ourselves up. Unless we have the ability to foresee the future and adapt to the unknown, it is an impossible feat to always choose the correct forks in the road.

The key, then, is to know how and when to forgive yourself. Know how to move on and accept your mistakes. It is a blessing to even recognize our mistakes, actually. That means we have the opportunity to learn from them so that we do not make the same mistakes again and again. We get better and stronger and wiser.

That is the true test of any person, Iʼd say. Some choose to live in the shadow of their mistakes, while others only count victories for times they were able to FINALLY make the right decision after the second or third or forth time. It’s not how you start, but how you finish.

The Parable Truth is:

 “Donʼt feel bad for the mistakes you made. Feel good for the fact that you have seen the mistake at all. That means you are about to grow.”

Note: This article is 1 of 3 Lessons & Inspirations that will be featured in Aakowa’s upcoming book titled, “WhoiAmisYou”.  You can pre-order the book & music album for $29.99 and you will also receive all related audio movies. Visit www.aakowa.com for more information.

Words by Sid Aakowa

Originally Published on: Oct 4, 2013

Republished on: 02-Feb 24, 2015