Cannot or Can?
The three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.
– Anne Lamott, Help Thanks Wow
There are times when you read something, and it’s like stepping on a rake. Knocks you square between the eyes.
We can’t change the past. No matter how much we’d like to distance ourselves from our epic fails, they remain ours. Sure, viewing them as a gift or lesson converts yesterday’s liabilities into today’s assets, but nothing can change the circumstances.
Another way the past is fixed is that there is no way to go back to it. No matter how special or magical or perfect a time seems in the rearview, the only things we can carry forward are our memories. Living in the past or trying to recreate it is a thief to our present.
This moment holds our total cumulative experience. It can never be less.
We also can’t change the truth. Of the three, this may be the most insidious. Sometimes we deny a truth so well that we start to believe the fiction. Nonetheless, the truth remains. We can’t out run it, out talk it, or out Netflix binge it. No matter how much we try to hide from a truth we find unpleasant, painful, or loathsome, it persists…waiting to be acknowledged.
Lastly, we can’t change another person. As a wise woman once said, people are 100% themselves all of the time. We can coerce, manipulate, and goad, but people are going to do exactly what they want in spite of our begging. The most we can hope for is to influence their beliefs which will perhaps incline them to consider changing their behavior.
So what are we left with? Fortunately, as with all yin, there is a yang…or three.
Here are three things we can change…our future choices, our acceptance of a truth, and our response to others. Our behavior…changes everything.
