Although there is a literal meaning to this quote, I believe there is a metaphorical one as well.

Many of us don’t have any idea what we want to do with our lives. That being said, there are also just as many of us who do.

Yet even with this clarity firmly in place, we can still find ourselves stuck, unable to make that first move.

Our struggle with moving forward is not always our lack of vision for the future, but with our relationship to the past.

We may have our engines all revved up and our routes mapped out, but if our lines are still moored to the shoreline of our past, then these tools are of little value to us.

So why do we hold on to these negative memories when deep down we know those feelings are preventing us from creating the future we desire?

Many times I believe it’s because we are wishing that our past had somehow been different.

We continue to hold onto pictures of the way it should or could have happened, rather than accepting what actually did happen.

With that perspective in place, we are no longer dealing with reality. We are now in the land of fantasy, trying to convince ourselves that what happened didn’t.

It’s like we believe that as long as we continue to view it this way, we somehow get to keep that perfect image of ourselves and pretend that this blemish wasn’t really our doing.

We are in denial.

In order to successfully let go of our past, we must first own it. Pick it up, look at it and acknowledge that it is indeed a part of who we are and where we have been.

It is only when we choose to hold it and accept it that we can truly let it go.

Acceptance of our past is paramount to creating a new future. What happened, really happened.

There are some who might see this approach as condoning the past or accepting bad behaviour and that we are somehow giving up.

Surrendering to our past is not giving up. On the contrary, like unmooring the ropes of our ship, we are just getting started.

It is when we continue to fight our past that I believe we truly give up – on our future.

As long as we stayed anchored in that sea of resentment, we are unable to move forward.

We can’t erase the memories of our past, but we can diminish the negative feelings we associate to them.

Staying in the fantasy of what should have been is a sure fire way to continue feeling the negative effects of a hurtful past.

Choosing to accept a less-than-desired result provides us with an opportunity to learn from it, thereby lessening the chance that we will repeat it in the future.

Holding onto it almost ensures that we will.