I have spent too much time dwelling on my past

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It is human nature for us to look at each other and make comparisons, I am sure before long we will be able to put each others names into one of these websites.

I like everyone else,  have often compared myself to others and imagined that they have a better life than I do.
Regardless of personal achievements it's easy to think that I’m not enough.

No matter how much I’ve done and accomplished in my life, I usually catch myself looking at other people´s lives and thinking they´re better off in every sense.

I compare myself to people who somehow “seem” to lead a more fun life. It always made me second guess decisions that I had made at pivotal moments in my life. 
 We sometimes get stuck, thinking about the past, or our “lost opportunities,” as we like to label them, and then we tell ourselves that the past opportunities are better than the present.

“If I had done such and such, I would be living my dreams.”
Or
“I´d be so happy if only I had…”
This is where the problem lies because Lost opportunities happen when we are nowhere instead of now here. We are nowhere when we live in the present lamenting the past, dreaming of a future that may never come if we are not mindful about our present, about the now here.  
I do not believe you can be happy if you are not living in the present.  When I stay fixated on situations in the past, god it makes me feel so utterly miserable. I feel like I´m not enough, or a failure. 

This of course is all complete and utter lies, the lies come from our shadows, from our fears, from our egos. This happens because we identify with our thoughts about what we could have done or what we should be doing. 
I have realized that I need to know how to differentiate my ego from my rest of me.  My ego voice:
It would be so much better if you were somewhere else. Life on the other side is much better. You could be living in another country and you would happy; instead, you are stuck here. You lost your opportunity to live this life. You failed.
These thoughts make me feel anxious, fearful, nervous, and jittery.
Love says:
Your life is wonderful and you have so many possibilities and opportunities, right here and right now. You are wonderful and you are loved. Open your eyes to the doors of opportunity near you, to the beauty that you already create right here and right now. All is well.
These thoughts bring peace and calm to my body and heart.

Whenever I start to drift back to the past and start comparing, I take a deep breath and bring my awareness back into the here and now, I used to use this technique in my golf and it really helped my focus. 

Being present means noticing the thousands of things around us that make life interesting. It also means making time for fun. It can be listening to your favorite song and singing along, or going out for a walk.

I still have moments when I wish I lived a different life, but I see them as opportunities to practice being in the present and cherishing all that is happening now.   I think if everyone was brutally honest they often have similar thoughts.  I am learning to see these moments as tiny reminders of living in the moment.

Oprah Winfrey famously said - If you concentrate on what you do not have, you will never, ever have enough. 


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