Someone sent me a nice quote today morning, which read as “The past is in our head and the future is in our hands.” I felt this quote was very insightful. We spend most of our life worrying about the past, rather than working for our future.

Let us reflect on our school and college life. We spend most of the time regretting about not doing well in a particular subject or grade, rather than preparing for the next one.

Similarly in organisations, both individuals and teams spend more time discussing about opportunities missed rather than the possibilities ahead. We need to remember that the past is not going to gift us the future. The past is history but the future is a mystery, which we need to resolve ,by our hard work and commitment to our goals.

Life is no different. We tend to spend more time worrying about about past conflicts or misunderstandings in family, community or society. We do not take the leap into the future. This requires courage to forget the past and craft our future.

I am not stating in any way ,that history is not important or that, we do not learn from failures. But, what I am trying to convey is that, time spent to look behind should definitely be less than the time invested in planning the future.

We can learn from our mistakes as individuals or teams. But, our ability to make the future fool proof ,will drive us to our dreams and goals . Past can at best be like a mirror, to learn the best lessons from our life gone by. But if we continue to look at the mirror, we may not look at the world ahead of us and people who will make it happen for us.

Let the past continue to be history and we learn from it. But let us learn to create a future through our actions today ,so that history does not repeat itself. Past can be a guide for the future and not a benchmark.

The best examples in this space is from the field of sports. Have we ever seen a sportsperson spending too much time regretting the loss in a game or missing a medal in a tournament. The best of sportspersons may learn lessons from their past but will focus on the future from the very next day.

Even if we look at team sports, teams may learn lessons from the past but will focus more on future strategies. The past can at best be a guide but the future is definitely in our hands.

We waste a lot of time regretting our past and thereby demotivating ourselves ,more than anyone else. If we spend more time time in planning and working for the future, the past may fade away in our memory and future will beckon us like sunshine in our lives.

Let us create a future of our choice since it’s in our hands.

S Ramesh Shankar

12th Jan 2024