A few hours ago I had written the most brilliant blog post ever. It was witty. It was inspiring. It was personal. It was honest. It had all the good stuff that blog posts should have.
It would have dazzled you.
It was titled, ironically, "What's Done Can be Undone"... just like this one. It was about the decisions we make and how we dupe ourselves into believing a story that we are stuck with our decisions. It was about learning to find the courage and freedom to change our minds. It was about making choices with our present lives that are valid to our current selves... instead of living with past choices out of regret, guilt, or fear of disappointment.
And of course, I have no proof of the genius-ness that I shared on the page... because instead of clicking 'save and publish', I accidentally pressed delete.
Noooooooooooooo!
That didn't just happen.
I spent days on that post.
I'll never get it back.
@#$@%@#!!!
Not only did I have a freak out for about 40 minutes... but in that space of time I also missed a client call and was almost late for my daughter's recital. I got a stomach ache. And a head ache. I missed my workout. I decided that I should never have started another blog. I considered giving up my profession. Packing up and walking away. Hanging my head in shame.
All this drama because of one little button on a webpage.
And what I made it mean.
Somewhere in the middle of watching my daughter singing Winter Wonderland at her school assembly (and trying to re-write the post in my head), I saw the humor of the title. And the fact that what was done was undone.
The whole point of what I want to share is that everything can be undone.
And it's ok.
Duh.
So, this post has none of the brilliance, charm, and wit of the first post. But it is about what really happened. And it's how I have learned to deal with things that happen. And it's how I help my clients work with things that happen.
The truth is: everything can be undone.
And re-done.
And undone. And re-done again.
Nothing in this world is truly static.
If you have regrets about decisions that you've made in the past. It's never too late to change. It's not too late to do what's right for you now.
What really matters is what you make it mean.
What I've noticed about this universe: I'm not in charge of how it runs. Sometimes things just happen. Sometimes housing markets crash. Sometimes people lose their jobs. Sometimes things break and need replacing. Sometimes you click 'delete' instead of 'publish'.
And when we try to hold on to the universe and try to make it behave, we end up feeling powerless and stuck.
When we tell ourselves
We should have never bought that house in 2006.
We shouldn't have used that credit card.
We should have saved more.
We should have never left that job. Or we should have left a long time ago.
We shouldn't have bought that.
We should have returned it.
If you make your decision mean that you are stuck, a failure, no good or stupid... then you will be stuck forever. We don't have a time machine and we can not change our past.
The only freedom we have is in this moment.
Right now.
We can choose a different path.
We can choose to let go of past decisions.
We can choose to undo what has been done.