Remember that whole rearview mirror incident? Well I'm really beginning to think it happened to teach me more than simply paying attention (trust me, not even the best of school teachers have reached that feat).
You see, my dad's friend gave him a free replacement (and I wanted to give him a free hug--no more "500 bucks" comin' out o' my underfed wallet!) We painted it to match the rest of the car and my dad graciously attatched it. We still have to fix it though because it's aimed too far up and all I can really see in it is the sky; which, obviously, doesn't help me much unless I were birdwatching-on-the-go or trying to escape a bunch of 'bad-guy' helicoptors that were after me.
The other thing about it is that it's tinted. And I'm not complaining--for someone who just spent all her $40 yesturday in Target, this thing just saved my finanacial behind. No, this is just a big hinting detail as to what I'm getting at.
I sorta glanced at it the other day on my way to school and I got one of those weird epiphanies that this blog runs on. (Yep, here she goes again...)
Rearview mirrors look back, right? (I most certianly hope so.) Well I got to thinking about how one of my mirrors is crystal clear, reflecting every ray of sunshine, and how the other one puts a sort of dark, haunted tinge on everything. In english, when we decide to take a stroll down memory lane, what memories do we bring up?
I have a book by John Bytheway (one of my favorite youth speakers) called "How to Be Totally Miserable. A self-hinder book" that illustrates this perfectly.
"There you are, faced with a pile of videos labeled 'memories' and a VCR called your brain. Hmmm, which tape should you play? It depends on whether your trying to be happy or miserable. If your trying to be happy, play the ones that give you hope and make you laugh! If you're trying to be miserable, play and replay the tapes of your past mistakes. Relieve all the less-than-good times as if they had value. It's a ridiculous strategy; but that's what miserable people do. As with all other video selections, you have a choice. Happy people sometimes replay a sad memory, but they have the motto, 'Be kind, don't rewind'. If they've done something stupid in their past, they repent, refocus, rewind, and re-record something else over that bad memory. As Stephen R. Covey might say, 'They live out of their imagination, not out of their memory.' Miserable people watch the tape again and again until they're depressed. They don't realize that their past doesn't define their future.'
Two parrells! How's that for one post? Anyways, I guess I'll end with another quote by one of the Latter-Day Saint Church Authorities who's name I shamefully can't quite remember,
"The past is behind, learn from it. The future is ahead, prepare for it. The present is now, live in it."
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