The mind can be a tricky. We look forward and we look backward. What’s in front of us. What’s in back of us. Both are important.Consider this though. All we can control, can address are NOW and NEXT. The current moment and our next action… what we decide… NOW, a decision in the moment then what we decide looking forward… NEXT. The Windshield. We don’t control what happened… the past. The test we failed. A friendship, loved one or job lost. Bad behaviors. Regrets. Laments. Grieves. The Rearview Mirror.The Mirror brings us happiness too. Wonderful memories. Thoughts of loves past. Events. Trips. Experiences. These and other thoughts are reflective. Important. Beneficial. Not forward looking.

My Atlanta Falcons and their epic Super Bowl collapse. Ouch! Will they gaze reflectivity in Rearview Mirror or look ahead to the season ahead? The Windshield… a choice.Hmmm… The Windshield is much larger than the Rear View Mirror isn’t it. Suggests something to us?

My friend Ernie is a great historian. Can recall every battle of the Civil War. Events in his past. Clearly an interesting guy. Always enjoy, admire his capacity to retrieve so much from that fertile mind of his.But my friend Ernie can also too often dwell on past ills, slights, bad stuff. “I’ll never forgive him (her) for that.” “If only they had done it differently.” His divorce. Rejections. Holds a lot of grudges. If only this. If only that. He lives to much looking through his Rear View Mirror. I love Ernie. A wonderful person. But he gets trapped in “Oh me, oh my.” Bit of a victim… actually.I’m a Windshield guy.

Heck I went to Dick’s Sporting Goods the other day and paid for exercise clothes twice at the checkout counter cause I forgot I’d already paid 30 second earlier. I was looking through my Windshield. Thinking about my lunch with a buddy. Thinking about a great golf trip we were planning together. Will do this vs didn’t do that.Can’t remember a lot of history. I’ve driven to my daughter’s home in CT fifty times. Nancy still has to tell me where to turn. Can’t remember. I’m a Windshield guy.

Optimism vs pessimism? Yeah. But this is more about consciousness. Being aware of where we are living now. How our attitude effects not us only but those around us too. I have seen people who change their state in life by simply changing their attitude of mind. They spend more time reaching, dreaming, creating… growing. Looking through their Windshield… more than their Rearview Mirror.In the final resolve? I think we truly become what we think about.Lastly I’m not suggesting you don’t feel past hurts, be dismissive. of our Rearview realities. You must process these. With more intense experiences, a true grieving process is needed.

But once reviewed, processed… move on. All of us have stuff. But for the most resilient of us. The Windshield has to be more our focus than the Rearview Mirror.