Oh, hi friends!
The guilt is preventing you from moving forward.
Adam Mathias, the moderator for one of my theater workshops, said that a few weeks ago to someone who had regrets about not working on a project for the past year. This person wished they were further along, and I recognized myself in their frustration: Why didn’t I use this time wisely?
And Adam’s response was so clarifying, so real, that I wrote it in my notes and have been thinking about it ever since.
Guilt can manifest in all sorts of ways and interactions, in both our personal and professional lives. But when you’re being given an opportunity to move forward — as some of us are now, with Band-Aids on our biceps and a spring in our step — holding on to that guilt can stop us from going anywhere.
Maybe you feel a similar frustration (and this doesn't have to be limited to the past year). You may not have changed careers or found your dream home upstate or stayed in touch with friends. You may not have started a Substack or adapted to TikTok or learned to love cooking or created a five-year plan. You may not have refined that idea or gotten an agent or finished that novel or found the right partner or started a family or figured out anything, really, in any tangible way in the past year.
And now the guilt from the “I should have” is preventing you from moving forward.
Forgive yourself. That time is gone.
Forgive yourself. Move forward anyway.
“Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could do. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson
Yes! I’m adding “Your Old Nonsense” to my possible future production company names. Thanks, Ralphie.
One foot in the weekend and one foot in Monday. Let’s go.
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara