Starting over. Two words that make people cringe who have had to go through it, especially if they have done it often. Unlike starting “out,” starting “over” can be either demoralizing or refreshing. Starting “out” is always exciting. Every 18-22 year old, venturing out on their own for the very first time are unjaded by life. They have nothing. Everything is new. Everything is a learning experience. Then they begin to accumulate.
It isn’t just material things that we accumulate with age, but also baggage. We accumulate all of the emotions of bad experiences, failed jobs, failed relationships, and just life in general. Life is going good, then something dramatic happens, and your world is turned upside down. Everything important is suddenly ripped away, and we find ourselves in the dreaded place of “starting over.”
Starting over is not a lateral move. It is not packing up your belongings and relocating to a job you already have, with security built in. No. Starting over is becoming that 18-22 year old again. Starting over is realizing that you are going into an entirely new direction than what you had planned for your life. The biggest difference is that now, you have experience. You have baggage. You are sometimes jaded towards new relationships. Perhaps you are jaded towards a career you used to love. Maybe even jaded by the fact that the material possessions you’ve worked so hard to attain must now be given up in order to “start over.” Whatever the reason for starting over, it is seldom fun.
BUT, it doesn’t have to be all negative! Starting over can be a time of new hope. A time of new love. A time of new growth, and a time of healing. Starting over allows us to look at our possessions and realize that maybe they are not as precious as we thought. The memories always remain, but the dust covered items which never get looked at can go. Starting over allows us to experience new jobs, and new people. Starting over allows us to clean out our dirty laundry, and if we allow it, let newness fill the darker void left by our past experiences. Baggage? It always remains, but it never has to define our futures. Baggage becomes nothing more than emotional scars that we needlessly carry with us on our new voyage.
So have no fear of starting over. Clean out your closets, both literal and figurative, and allow the fresh start to define your future happiness. Good things are always around the corner.
Many Blessings,
Troy
Troy P Zehnder 