I will start with three quotes that all say the same thing, but just a little differently.
The path to achieving growth, is when you have to the ability to give up all hope for a better past.
True growth begins when we surrender the illusion that the past could have been any different.
You’ll grow the day you finally accept that no amount of wishing will change the mess that’s already happened.
Let’s sit with them for a second.
The truth hurts, but let’s be honest, it hurts a lot less than holding onto a past you can’t change.
Here’s your reality check: We are all going to die. Every single one of us. We’re not getting out of this alive. So why do we waste so much of our short time here dragging the past around like it’s some sacred relic? It’s not. It’s a corpse. And you’re the one carrying it on your back.
I’m sorry for whatever happened to you. Seriously. Life can be brutal. But here’s the other side: life is also ridiculously, breathtakingly amazing.
On average, we get 83 years. That’s 83 Winters to freeze your ass off, 83 Autumns to watch the trees bleed gold, 83 Springs to sneeze your head off, and 83 Summers to burn, sweat, and drink cold beer in the sun. Some get more, some get less. But when you look at it like that, it’s not that long. It’s a countdown clock. So what the hell are you doing, wasting precious seasons sulking over ones that didn’t go your way?
Every summer you spend replaying regrets is a summer you don’t get back. You think you’ve got time, but you don’t. Every season is one less in the bank. You can either keep staring at the stub from the gig that’s already over, or you can slam headfirst into the music that’s still playing.
Let Go, or Be Dragged
Clinging to the past is like holding barbed wire; the tighter you grip, the deeper you bleed. You don’t have to like what happened, and you sure as hell don’t have to forgive it, but you do have to stop giving it free rent in your head.
Because the more space the past takes up, the less room there is for joy, adventure, and all the weird little miracles still waiting for you.
So let the mess be the mess. Let the scars be the scars. They’re proof you’ve lived, not just existed. Your lowest point is the doorway to your highest self. When your heart shatters, it’s not just bad luck. It’s the soul cracking open so something deeper can break through.
We don’t see the value of the darkness while we’re drowning in it. But once it passes, we realise it forged us. It taught us how to become the light ourselves. The mind craves comfort, safety, the familiar. But the soul? The soul stirs for change. It refuses to stay stuck in yesterday’s grief or chained to the same stale version of you.
The meaning of life isn’t some riddle you need to solve. It’s simply this: to be alive. Right here, right now. To breathe, to feel, to know you’re still standing. And yet we waste that gift, clutching at the past, resisting the very currents pulling us deeper into awareness of our own aliveness.
You’re not here to chase happiness like a dog chasing its tail. That’s exhausting and pointless. Happiness is not the goal; it’s the byproduct of becoming whole. And wholeness? That requires contrast. Dark and light. Sorrow and joy. Breaking and rebuilding.
So when it hurts, let it hurt. Don’t run. Don’t numb. Don’t fake it. Sit in it. Listen to it. Let it teach you. And then, let it go. Rise again, louder, sharper, stronger.
Because that’s the real game. Not erasing the past, but using it to build the version of you that refuses to stay down.
Perspective Is Everything
Let’s say you cut your hand. To the naked eye, you see blood. You know you need that red stuff to live, so you patch it up and move on. Simple.
Now zoom in with a microscope, and it’s absolute carnage. Cells fighting, bacteria getting annihilated, a microscopic war zone that looks like a bad action movie. But that chaos? That’s the reason you don’t die from a paper cut. If you tried to stop it or tidy it up, you’d wreck the process, and the higher organism (you) would end up worse off.
So which perspective is right? Both.
Life’s the same. Up close, it looks like disaster, heartbreaks, betrayals, failures, messy chapters that feel like they’ll never end. But zoom out. Take the wide-angle view. Suddenly, it all looks like part of the process. The wreckage isn’t meaningless; it’s raw material. It’s the breakdown before the rebuild. Maybe all of it is just what’s needed for you to heal, grow, and become who you’re meant to be.
So, what is it going to take to make you let go? Whichever one of the sayings below helps you, roll with it. Or make one up for yourself.
Now stop whining, get up, and go live. Because the clock’s ticking, and no one wants to waste their last summer complaining about the one that got away.
Life’s short. Stop staring in the rearview mirror, you’ll crash. Eyes forward, get moving
Look, if the past had an “edit” button, we’d all be supermodels with six-pack abs. It doesn’t. So quit doom-scrolling your own history and go do something worth laughing about later
Every scar, every stumble, every heartbreak is just the universe chiselling you into who you’re meant to be. Stop clinging to the stone dust.
Now let go and get out there living with all you beautiful flaws, you bloody amazing human being.
