Oh That, That’s Always Been There

We all have something where, if a guest walked into our house, they would see this ‘thing‘ and bring it to our attention.

For years, perhaps decades, this object has been there and blends into the background.

It’s not out of place to us because it’s just there. It’s not gaudy because it’s simply part of our home’s surroundings. Sure, it started out as misplaced, off center, not tying the room together at all, but it simply is there now.

The more, or any, attention we place on it the less attention we have available for things which are pressing or matter more in our life at present.

But in walks the outsider, the friend or neighbor or persistently knocking Jehovah’s Witness, and the first thing they utter is ‘hey that’s an interesting thing in the corner over there.’ And you have to brush it off or act surprised yourself because again, it’s just kinda always there and might as well be part of the structural makeup of the house itself.

I paint this picture vividly in order to set up what I would hope is the obvious punchline:

There are things we keep in our lives that we pay no attention to anymore and yet others can see them clearly.

There are two categories to these objects. First, things which serve a purpose. And second, things which serve no purpose (or no good purpose).

We can address the first category because though it’s there in the background, it’s good, it’s purposeful, it serves something in our life even if it’s high contrast in color or a Salvation Army thrift find which is beyond tacky. It has a significance because of when you found it or who you found it with. This object of the past blends in but becomes a part of you because of who or what it represents. And it represents redemptive purpose, restoration, a symbol of who you are still becoming.

Which leads to the second category of objects: the no good purpose at all items.

Since this is something we acquired long ago, it’s something from our past. And if it serves no good purpose and has just been sitting there in the corner all this time, it’s worse than neutral. Even if we don’t see it anymore, others see it. They notice it and call it out at first glance.

Even if it’s been there all along like our actual past, we might have to do what author Bob Goff suggests we do with it: break up with our past. In his book Undistracted, he strongly encourages us to, and gives us the permission to, break up in a rather dramatic way with our past. We need to write an actual “Declaration Against Distraction” (p 45).

If our past is serving as nothing but a distraction to who we can become, then it needs to go. Even if it’s been blending into the background for so long. Numbness masquerades as a solution but it’s detrimental just like active pain.

See. It may be something innocent enough to us at this stage in our life. We’ve done a great job shoving our past into a corner in the room. It’s just there. It blends into the background now.

The issue is it effects everything in the room, our lives, and other’s lives.

Having gone long enough with the room analogy, it wilters a little here, but the point has arrived.

We have to break up with things in our past which serve no purpose with the person we are suppose to become.

And it can get so bad we don’t even notice our past wound in an active sense anymore, but others see it (hear it, feel it) and are simply redirecting our attention towards it so we can finally rid ourselves of it.

If we need to rid our purposeless past event/identity, what’s holding us back? In a Psychology Today article the author states, “the No. 1 reason why people hold onto stuff. Many people simply don’t feel that they have the permission to get rid of things.”

That’s it. We hold onto stuff because we don’t think we are allowed to get rid of it.

We are waiting for someone to enter into our life and speak candidly that the object sitting there in the corner is not only noticeable, but needs to go. We were waiting for someone outside ourselves to give us this permission.

We thought we were burdened with living with our burdens. But we have the permission to break up with our past, freeing us to grow into who we are becoming.