You must stop trying to relive the glory days. Day in and day out you may find yourself talking about all the things you did years ago. “I used to go on vacation all the time,” “I used to be physically fit,” “Remember when I did ____.” Are you the one that keeps talking about the greatness of the past?
I was that person. My topics of conversation ended up about my past. Interestingly enough I realized that it was other people that may have started this for me. They would always tell stories about me and the things that I did. I then would reflect on them. My personality was/is live and in color and many thought I was crazy. I was totally ok with that.
Addicted to being in the spotlight
The conversations from others seemed to have put me in the spotlight within my group. Being a person who is said to be funny and extremely outgoing seems to have made me want to do more crazy things. A cycle was started. Then I grabbed the wheel and went full throttle with my antics. Stories of me and my antics always surfaced. The times with my lowered truck club, my days of riding my dirt bike on the streets at the wee hours of the morning with no headlights, stories of my girlfriends, just keep coming.
“You remember that time before you even had a license and you borrowed your friends brothers heavily modified VW Bug?” “You stumbled upon a Camaro at 1am, raced and beat them in the oncoming lane?!” Naturally I would reflect about how many crazy and fun things I did in my life. Wow, I seemed to be somewhat of a celebrity!
Inner reflection
As time went on and life calmed down, I started looking inward. During this time I was working 70-80hrs per week and really didn’t have the time to do the cool things I did before. The excitement seemed to have stalled. Adrenaline started fading as each day passed which made my mind go into the past. My thoughts were constantly there and I didn’t position my life towards the future. I was nineteen or twenty during this time frame.
A bit of chaos happened with my crazy ex-girlfriend so I found it safer for me to move 500 miles away. Ahhh, what a relief. No more crazy! Moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1995. I quickly connected with like-minded automotive enthusiasts. Just like that, I became wild all over again.
Playing with cars
Fast forward a few years and I then moved back to Atlanta, Georgia. Shortly after I started working at a motorsports performance shop and the adrenaline continued flowing. Every single day was play time and it was pretty great. Then I found myself receiving a phone call from Universal Studios. It was a call that change my future. I sold Universal performance parts for some of the cars for the first two movies of The Fast and The Furious.
Overnight it seemed as if I was in the lime light once again. Before the film was released they sent us one of the hero cars from the film. It was a blast! We had private screenings for our company. A midnight showing of the movie and a parking lot full of performance import cars! Yes, I had a Honda Civic with performance goodies. After the movie it was on! Burnouts and street races quickly followed.
The police magically appeared and we scattered like ninjas in the night. The next night we premiered the film at another movie theater and as you could imagine the same thing happened. This time we were met with a rolling roadblock on the interstate and a helicopter above us with the spotlight on the roadway. Damn, that part sucked!
Remembering the glory days
People then poured into our shop with demands for “NOS.” I wanted to punch each of them in the face. Finally a bit of time went by and it calmed down. Life was slowing down a lot for me and I quickly got back into the mental rut by revisiting the glory days. This viscous cycle needed to stop. All I could do was now talk about my past without any help from the people around me. It seemed as if I didn’t have any zest in my life.
See what happened there? I went back in time rambling on about the good ole days. If there is lull of happiness in your life and you constantly view your past with admiration, then you’re not looking towards your future for goodness. Going through your photo albums is doing absolutely nothing for you.
The remedy for this is to create your new path, get on it and keep pushing forward. You need to believe that more goodness is heading your way. Manifest them in your head so that each day you can wake up and position yourself to make the necessary changes. We have highs and lows in life but believe in yourself and your abilities to have a good future.
I am currently on a quest for some type of adrenaline again on a regular basis and I have my head in the right direction. I had another back surgery and have been cleared to resume certain activities. There was a very big statement about not having a drama to the lower back so they said I need to play it safe. This part isn’t good, but I will find something suitable for me. Adrenaline will flow again!!
I believe automotive racing may be on my menu!!
Conclusion
Constantly going back in time reminiscing will only keep you there. Your thoughts will be there with no forward motion. Change your thought process so that you can move forward and create new goodness. It’s ok to have your memories and treasure them just don’t get stuck by them. Make new memories now!
How do you think that constantly going back in time trying to relive the past can affect your current and future progress?
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