IN DUSTY STREETS WHERE OLD GHOSTS MEET

Somewhere deep inside all of us stands that small uncertain child watching the world through wary eyes.  Childhood is often looked back on with half remembered feelings, the ghosts of promise and despair, but where we came from, has led to where we are today.

Every life has a history, good or bad. It can be remembered with nostalgia or nightmares, but the experiences, and events of our past, influence and shape our future, and make us the people we are.  

If we are one of the fortunate few, for whom life has always been good and the future holds no fears, it is easy to stride into it with confidence, you may be naive and ill prepared but experience of the past gives us no reason to suspect that life will not always be just as good.

For others the events of the past haunt the future, holding them back and leaving them fearful of what the world has in store. They approach the future with caution, peering around the corner expecting to see a gaping chasm where their life path should be. They don’t have dreams, they don’t make plans, and they don’t have hope.

The past has a long arm, it holds strong influence, clouding judgement and consuming confidence. So if the past has been a struggle how can we expect anything more from the future?  

If we constantly pick at old scars they will eventually re-open, and out will pour all the hurt and disappointment of battles fought long ago. Whether they were won or lost will no longer be relevant but they will pull us back to feelings of stress and recharge old fears and uncertainties. The past is our history and cannot be changed but it can be left behind.

However hard our beginnings, it is one of life’s miracles that the human spirit grows stronger with experience either good or bad. As a child we are followers but age gives us the ability to be leaders, to shape a different life and create our own  experiences.  

Courage rarely comes from looking back over your shoulder, it comes from the conviction that there is a future worth fighting for.

“Nothing is predestined; the obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings”.     Ralph Blum