Break Free from your past to Victory!

Everyone of us has a past, that is a fact! For that matter you have some people that are running from theirs or are trying to escape it.  Then you have the flip side that don't have, shall we say, such a checkered or troubled past, just ordinary so too speak. No matter what the deal is with your past there are some things you need to be aware of when trying to start a new chapter of your life.  When I am talking about a new chapter that could be any number of things from new relationship, new job, new friends or organizations, seriously anything.

First thing you have to remember is the past is behind you, it is what you have done. It is what you know and in retrospect it is 20/20. Meaning you can see it perfectly.  Next thing you have to remember is that the past is immutable and unchangeable, it cannot be reworked or rewritten.  The unfortunate thing is it is the gauge upon which most people measure their future happiness and direction from.  The problem with that is we have a tendency as human's to rationalize and objectify past relationships.  This can greatly interfere with starting a new one, but we will cover that later on.  The third thing is there is a reason why it is called a past.  Seasons change, people grow and behaviors  that once were prevelant mutate or morph as we grow and learn.  Fourth, as we grow, learn and change a learned habit or behavior has changed, morphed or was left behind for a reason.  Look closely why you stopped doing something, carefully because you may find there was a reason or motivating factor that brought on the change, and guess what that reason is probably still there. Fifth, it is impossible to go back and recreate certain likable aspects of your past because no two moments, situations or people are ever going to be the same and you run the risk of destroying the tenuous path you built to lead your forward.  Sixth, you cannot live in the past! Time, circumstances, situations, players will change of course they have too. As was stated earlier no two moments will ever be exactly the same. Plus, trying to stay in the past hinders you from ever moving forward.  Past drama and baggage will surely trip you up and weigh you down.  That added weight clouds your judgement and impairs your vision.  It is sad but true for every new beginning there has to be an ending.  Accept that and move one.  Leave the past where it is. A good rule of thumb to consider how far forward can you possibly move if you are looking backward?  If you're fixated on your past you will be rooted where you are at and cannot move anywhere. If you aren't moving you become stagnate.  You cannot learn, you cannot grow and further yet you cannot experience anything.  Take it as a sign the past is a dead end, a road once traveled that has reached an end. Learn from it, use as a map or blueprint, a learning tool, for where to place your feet on the road ahead.  Look at the past pitfalls, potholes, detours and signposts so you don't run afoul, but keep it moving forward.  In other words, use it as a guide, learn from your mistakes, forgive what has come before, but don't forget lest you repeat them and crash.

Along with everyone's past comes a whole host of things. For one thing there are rewards and consequences for the choices you have made. It is unfortunate that not all actions and consequences are immediate.  Some things are slow and creep up on you, and you have to be ready to answer or atone for them.   Trust me everyone's past come back to bite them in the end.  You cannot change or avoid them forever.  For those that have a bad or checkered past you may never truly escape the judgement's and persecution that haunt you for what you have done.  It may even be impossible to return to the place of your past and ever succeed.  You might very well find your forward path is blocked and forever closed.  An example if you will. A friend of mine has tried so hard to make a positive change in his life. He has left Atlanta and returned home to regroup, retool and hone his skills and focus.  On several occasions has tried to return to Atlanta and has been unsuccessful thus far.  Now, background  and insight, though he has gone home, taken advice and has launched a very successful career.  He is human and has made some fatal mistakes at each and every possible return.  Let's look closely at the situation, careful to observe and understand then we will tell you how all of this can be changed for his benefit.  Over the past eight years or so my friend entered deeper and deeper into the drug culture of Atlanta, the party circuit, that I myself was a major player and purveyor of.  He built a reputation of being belligerent, violent, stubborn, weird and psychotic at times.  Rumors, innuendo, and tales of his exploits soon preceded him every where he went.  His reputation became one of that of a thief, a liar, a cheat. He fed into that with his temper time and time again, fights would occur  people got hurt, police had to be involved, etc.  Once a reputation precedes you it is very hard to change people's opinions and minds.  Innocent gestures, meaningless actions are silenced by the deafening roar of the past.  You're discounted as having changed before you can even demonstrate you have.  Nothing you say will be heard only dismissed out of hand, it seems pointless and frustrating. How can you change all of that?

How can you stage a return? Become triumphant? And demonstrate you have indeed changed?  The answer is simple really, you must first understand what you are up against.  Really open yourself up, search deep within yourself. Be brutally honest, understand and acknowledge your past. Be willing and able to reap what you have sown, be strong enough to weather the coming storm, because it will come! You must realign your life toward your focus and your goals.  Then you must shift your life 180 degrees, what once was in the open now becomes guarded and private.  You must change your habits, your friends. You must be selective and choose who and what you allow to be near to you.  You must let your work, deeds and actions speak for themselves. Become almost reclusive and secretive. Create and air of mystery, never showing weakness or lack of focus.  Change your routine, and if you can openly embrace the tide of skepticism, innuendo, show strength of purpose, passion and conviction in the face of detractors and doubts.  If you can break those habits that people expect to see, and if you can't then hid them so well that no one will ever see.  In order to break the past you mush show or project a clean break. I am fond of saying a change of scenery and friends maybe what it takes. You create a new persona, a public face that is what everyone will see, you guard that jealously and protect it at all costs.  This is what you will become.  Turn away those that would tear you down. Cut them from you. You must maintain at all times a united unbreakable front. Let your passions and actions be your words, your platform.

Those from your past will talk, they will jeer and try to bring you down. You must become the master of spin and damage control. Negative publicity can always be turned around and spun to have a positive light. Embrace your past, acknowledge your failings, but show you have risen above them, defeated them and have made a change.  Don't run from those things make them work for you!  Remember everyone is a sucker for a hard luck story, people always root for the underdog.  Your career must take precedence, you must curb your personal feelings and your inner need for gratification, turn your addictions into the drive and motivation you need to propel you forward.  Never forget where you came from but keep it moving forward.  Give back to the community be charitable and comfortable to acknowledge what you have come through. Show how you rose above what you were and how you triumphed over it. Own it, rule it, once you can do that, it can no longer hurt you.  Be candid and open, know in your heart that once it is out there under the spotlight of public life and the intense scrutiny that will follow that it can no longer hurt you, it could possibly benefit you in the long run.  Remember that in darkness and shadow deceit and misconceptions grow, and from that darkness can erupt a tidal wave of past misconduct that can pull you under if you aren't ready. Live in the light and keep it right and you will have nothing to fear!  You must be brave and suppress your insecurities, because those are the two biggest things that will hold you back and keep you from taking the risks necessary to carry you to the next level.

So what have we learned?  How can we be triumphant and dispel the myths, misconceptions, preconceived notions that linger from our checkered past? That to move forward we must make a change, understand that our entire life is up for scrutiny and review. Create a public facade that you want the world to see. Break the mold and the habits that hold you in place. Admit your faults, embrace your differences. Become focused on your career and goals, change those you hang with. Be compassionate with your detractors, show how you rose above your addictions and limitations, cast them in the light of victory. Show how you beat the odds that were stacked against you and that you truly have learned from your past.  Be a role model, give hope, courage and love through example. Actions speak louder than words! Remember your roots and be gracious. Put everything in the light keep nothing hidden.  Keep it moving forward, be guarded and careful of who you let into circle.  Do what you do! Be who you are and you can't fail.  Make sure your goals are attainable and reachable. Be a leader not a follower.  Know your voice and your message, defend those who can't defend themselves, embrace and be passionate about a cause that is greater than yourself. You are a champion, you have overcome and demonstrated it at every turn.  Be fierce and proud, don't be afraid to speak out loud!

You will know beyond a shadow of doubt that you have then made the transition, you have become that public face.  Never run from your past because you can never out run it. You can never hide from it either.  Remember "What's mead to be will always find its way" be up for the challenge, regard the fates the sisters three: Fate, Karma and Destiny. They weave the tapestry of life, be careful because at a whim they just may snip your thread and end your career. "Into the light Carol-Anne" let the world see how triumphant and successful you can be.  Reward yourself, be honest to your self and your cause. Watch and see how easy it can be!

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B

Risks must be mitigated in order for you to profit in love or life

Surely you know that in order to succeed at life you have to take some risks.  The important thing to remember is that whenever you invest your money, time, or love, you need be extremely careful.  Just like a business who is about to invest money they run a risk analysis.  This means that take a careful look at the risks to the business plan to see what their potential losses might be.  They balance the risks against the projected return on investment to see if the return justifies taking the risk.  In our personal lives we must do the same thing on a much smaller scale.  Before you invest your money or heart in anyone you need to be sure of the motives fit in line with your personal goals.  Look closely at what your potential return on investment might be.  If you believe the risks are acceptable then by all means move forward.

What I am trying to say is this.  If you honestly care about someone and you feel that their feelings for you are genuine then look at the risks involved with that relationship.  You may find them acceptable at the time.  But it is also important to reevaluate your relationship as time moves on because the risks, consequences and circumstances might have changed.  In my own personal life I can tell you that when I met Joe I was living in Orlando with my brother and a good friend Stewart.  Joe and I hit it off right away, and we spent the first two weeks of our relationship together almost inseparable. After that we kept talking and before I knew it my lease term was ending at my apartment and I had a choice to transfer my apartment lease to Atlanta so that Joe and I could be with each other.  Which at the time the risk was minimal, though I was investing my heart into someone that I had just met recently.  Now, I will never tell you that I made a mistake when I did this, but I didn't take into account that I would be leaving my job behind and I would have to find work in a new city.  Luckily, it didn't take me long at all to find work because I was with a temporary agency.  My move turned out to be a good thing for me, before I knew it Joe and I were buying a house together and our lives were off and running.  The relationship lasted for 12 years, however around year 7 things started getting out of control, we were fighting all the time and drugs had entered the picture and the actual dynamic of the relationship began to turn. He wanted to explore his sexuality and experiment doing different things. I had already been down this road during my first relationship and was extremely hesitant.  This became a bone of major contentment and at that point in my life I should have reevaluated and did another risk assessment and return on investment. If I would have done that I would have saved Joe and I, five more years of turmoil and fighting, which became both mental and physical.

As people our goals and moods can change over time, if you are in a relationship you need to make sure that the goals that you have as a couple mesh well.  Individual goals need to intertwine with the couple goals, if they don't you are going to drift apart and the relationship will self destruct.  Now, I can tell you how devastating that can be after investing so much time with someone and how hard it is to pull yourself back together.  When something like this happens in your life because you didn't mitigate the risks, which basically means you need to seriously look at them, identify them and do something about them.  By mitigating the risks you can save yourself endless hours of pain and misery.  Investing your heart into someone is a scary and exciting thing, but if not handled right you could open yourself up to hurt, disappointment and disillusionment.

Now, let me tell you a little about what is going on in my present relationship, and the risks that are involved with it.  As of tonight there have become some really hairy snags that are going to need to be addressed and fixed before one of us gets hurt.  Now, normally I am not a jealous person and I have been in sexual situations with my partner and other people in a group situation before.  As a matter of fact we went from a love triangle where I was in love with him and his partner, now keep in mind that I had encounters with his partner before they ever met, which sort of made the transition easy and bearable.  I got along with both, but that ended more than a year ago now.  Since then we have been trying to establish ourselves as a couple.  There are some things that are going on right now that are risky, things that I am not necessarily 100 percent comfortable with, and before I can proceed any further, I need to address these issues or take the risk of getting extremely hurt in the process.  Now, trust me I understand the motivations behind this and I understand the financial implications, but all afternoon I have been trying to establish that we need to be more private, that we need to keep others from being in our life and relationship, and now the door is opened for him to make some money using his body, and connections make things happen at the time frame of his choosing.  I applaud his herculean efforts, and I understand the sentiments.  But it gives me pause does he really understand what I mean when I say I don't want to get back into that life, that I want to stay as far away from it as possible and that I want to focus on my career and his?  I don't honestly believe so.

Keeping in mind that I promised I wouldn't get mad when he told me and I haven't, I am trying to work within the framework with the options he has given me, but I want to exclude myself from participating in the actual event.  Honestly, I would be perfectly happy with him doing his thing and then coming to see me, let him have his last fling and get it out of his system, if that is even possible. Because I walked away from that life, and I know that once I open that door back to that world I will be tempted beyond my ability to fight to keep from plunging back into that world.  Not saying there is anything wrong with that. Most of you that read my blog know exactly what I am talking about. You were there with me, and some of your are still there.  But for me with my health issues and new found liberty, I do not necessarily want to screw up where I am heading.  Please understand that I am not judging any of you.  The addictions and demons I fight are private and well documented in my blog.  My heart is at risk, what if I loose him to that world again, what if this time I am not strong enough to pull him back as I have done in the past.  I lost one person in my life to Meth and drugs/sex parties, I don't think I could do it again.  Here I am 4 1/2 years later, wondering am I doing the right thing again?

Time will of course answer that question for me.  I know that my own personal conviction is not strong enough nor do I think I could stand to see him in the situation that he described to me on the phone.  Yes, I love him with all my heart, but I am starting a new job. I have things going for me in my life that are important and I am passionate about. I don't want to jeopardize all that.  So after hearing the risks and assessing them as I have here, I have come to the mitigating part. I have told him to do his thing and that I will come and get him when all is done, bring him down and we can do our thing.  See a part of me doesn't want to see all the other people touching and messing with him. I have been there and done that. It is my turn to have him all to myself, so if this is the way feels it needs to be, then I am fine letting him do it and then pick it up afterwards.

Yes a part of me wants to be there, but will it be good for us? I don't think so, could it become a distraction? Could it be the beginning of a pattern that is bound to be repeated time and again? I sure the hell hope not, and yes it is definitely going to be a distraction.  Once the genie is out of the bottle I don't believe there will be a way to put her back inside again, and I am finally going to loose him once and for all. Because I cannot be what he wants in the end.  FEAR!

Life is full of risks, it is how we approach them, view them, and simply try to mitigate them that will help protect our investment in to each situation.  If the risk is greater than the potential return, then my advice to you is to leave it alone and move on. However, if you find the risk is at an acceptable tolerance, take the risk, get your return, but keep in mind constant observation and reevaluation is key to any successful venture.

I hope this make sense to you and that you can understand in a real sense that you need to be frugal with how you invest your time, money and love, they are not cheap commodities and are hard to replace once they have been poorly invested.  Stop and evaluate the situation, make the assessment I talked about and be totally honest with yourself. If you can accept the risks move forward, if not, then beware of them and move on.  As I am so fond of telling you life is short.  I told my Facebook family tonight just a little while ago, love can endure a lot of things like distance, trauma, drama, but it cannot endure betrayal and doubt.  Make sure you know yourself and your partner before you go down the road that I am sitting on tonight.  Because on one side is happiness and the other is a great big abyss, where will I eventually end up? Only God knows now.

As always my hopes and dreams are with you,

Uncle B