When We Need to Leave Things Behind
Sometimes there are changes in our lives, from occupational to social, geographical and cultural. It is not uncommon to be making these changes, things just become different from time to time. During such instances, we need to leave places, possessions and people behind.
Many of us don’t want to, moreover are unwilling to put the past in the past. This can be seen by so many people that dwell, always dwelling in the past on what was, what could have been, what still can be. Of course, this is all thought and no action when you are thinking of these hypothetical scenarios.
All of your energy is diverted from productive pursuits to a series of ‘what if’ situations. Translation to this is you no longer are going after what you want at full capacity, you are living in the past, unwilling to give up the ghost.
But the fact of the matter is that there was probably a reason why you left those parts of your life behind. Whatever it may be, going back for a second time rarely means things will be better. In fact it is more a matter of retreating back to your comfort zone and being unwilling to continually push when things get hard.
And the kicker is that not only will you be going back to the same old thing which you probably left for good reason, you will also be far behind in whatever you were trying to pursue in that old setting due to the fact that you have been away for some time.
Leave the Past Behind
This is walking backwards with your eye constantly on the rear view mirror. The solution(a solution at least) is when you leave something behind, do so for good reason. It needs to be a well thought out, conscious decision and right or wrong, you live with it and cut it out of your life, never to look back.
A quick example, I decided more then 2 years ago to let go of accountancy because I knew working in a cube for the next 40 years would make me miserable, and till this day I have no intention on returning.
Another way to put it is, cut things out for good reason, and don’t look back, give up the ghost.
Kingston S. Lim
March 27, 2021
Nairobi, Kenya
Kingston S. Lim 
Well-written post, Kingston! I agree with your perspective! ❤ Hope all is going well!
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Thank you Cheryl, all is well, hope the same for you as well
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Fantastic post. I recently had a situation where a job I retired from offered me a part time position I said no because I knew I would be going back to something I didn’t like just to bevcomfortable.
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Thank you for sharing a bit about your career and thank you for reading
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Love it! Stumbling upon your inspirational post right when I am about to leave the job I was about to leave one year ago but stayed cause of “no choice” is making me really feel good about my decision. As a reference, behavioral economists observe that people tend to continue an action because of an initiation investment/ past decision rather than rational judgement. We should never remain or return to a job out of comfort and ease.
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Glad you found this post! In reference to what the behavioral economists found about continued action because of initial investment, I believe it is termed a “sunk cost fallacy” where we are unwilling to give something up, even if it’s bad for us, because we have already dedicated so much time, energy and attention to it. Here is a post on wrote that gets into more detail about this if you are interested:
https://kingstonlim.com/2020/07/15/being-in-a-rut-is-sunk-cost-fallacy-kingstons-journey-62/
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Thank you! You’ve covered the topic quite extensively. Thats great!
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