2021 was a year that brought me to my knees. For reasons I'm not yet ready to share, I found myself in one of the darkest periods of my life.
During the height of the pandemic in the Philippines, I did what many of us do when facing personal struggles – I buried myself in work. It was the only thing I could focus on, the only way to keep moving forward.
But grinding through each day wasn't enough. I was holding onto something that I've come to realize affects many people during their hardest moments: the weight of past memories. These weren't just any memories, but the heavy burden of "could haves" and "should haves" – paths not taken and choices that led to what felt like a point of no return.
The anger came first. It wasn't a directed anger, but rather a diffuse rage that colored everything in my life. I was angry at myself, primarily, for letting myself down, for compromising my standards to the point where
I barely recognized who I had become. But the true tragedy wasn't just about me – it was about the ripple effects my actions had on others, especially my children. They would have to live with the consequences of my choices, and that knowledge was almost unbearable.
For years, I found myself trapped in a cycle of disappointment and regret, constantly replaying memories of better times and questioning every decision that led me to where I was.
It wasn't until I discovered "The Daily Stoic" by Ryan Holiday in November of that year that things began to shift. The book introduced me to Stoic philosophy, and with it came a fundamental truth: we cannot control things outside ourselves, but we can control how we respond to them.
Let me share an analogy that resonated deeply with my experience. Imagine a fence where someone hammers a nail every time they're angry. Over time, the fence becomes riddled with nails, each one representing a moment of rage or pain. Eventually, even if you remove all the nails, the fence remains forever changed – full of holes, chipped away in places, misshapen.
That's how I felt – like a fence pretending to be whole while being fundamentally altered by my experiences.
But through daily reading and reflection on Stoic principles, I began to understand something crucial: while I couldn't change the holes in my fence, I could choose what to do with the fence I had.
I didn't have to remain anchored to old memories and past versions of myself. Instead, I could acknowledge them, learn from them, and then move forward to create new memories.
This realization became my turning point. I started small – one of my first acts of creating new memories was dining alone at Brotzeit, one of my favorite restaurants, in Shangri-La.
It might seem like a simple thing, but it marked the beginning of a new approach to life, one where I wasn't defined by my past but by the choices I was making in the present.
The journey of healing isn't about erasing the past – it's about building a future that isn't controlled by it.
Every day, I work on creating new memories, better memories. The holes in my fence remind me of where I've been, but they no longer dictate where I'm going.
Life rarely gives us clean slates, but it always offers us the chance to begin again with the slate we have. Sometimes, that's even more beautiful than starting fresh – because it shows that healing and growth are possible even after our darkest moments.
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