My Ghost of Christmas Past

December 16, 2014
Day 230

So many happy memories, so many fond recollections of days gone by, years gone by, lives long gone.

My Ghost of Christmas Past would undoubtedly show me plenty of joyful occasions from my childhood, as well as tons of happy times from high school, college, and even my 20s and 30s.  Yet the job description, as I understand it, is to bring the person reminders of who they ought to be, and maybe point them to a place in time where they began to change.

Where was this moment, I ask myself.  When did I go from carefree to stressed out, from patient to impatient, and from accepting to judgmental?  How did I get from one place to another, from one kind of person to another?  Why did I let myself change?

At 39 years old, I have high blood pressure, and often get stressed out over the silliest possible things.  Why do I let small matters matter so much?  Why do I permit this?

At 39 years old, I'm too often a very impatient person, watching the clock too often, expecting change too quickly.  Why do I do I allow impatience to rule my life so often?  Why do I permit this?

And at 39 years old, I'm so judgmental so often.  I pass judgment even when I tell myself not to, and far too often feel superior to friends and family for reacting to situations better than they do, or making different choices in words and deeds.  Why do I allow my ego to run rampant like this?  Why do I permit this?

My Ghost of Christmas Past shows me the young man I once was: the happy toddler, the hard-working employee, and the dedicated altar boy and monk.  I see all my best moments, but also some of my turning points, the ways I began to change.  Most of all, I'm haunted by the ways in which my younger self could have made better choices earlier in life. 

I'm grateful for the man I am right now, and appreciate all the ways in which I learned and grew as a human being, but I can't help but see the roads I didn't take, the lessons I never learned, and the choices in retrospect I should not have made.  Like any good Scrooge, I'm left now to ponder my Christmas Past, and more importantly, to learn as much as I can from the long glance backward.