"Reason" 11-5-04 
Everything we do has a reason. Everything we want has a reason. We are a reason, and we all have reasons. 
Throughout my life I have had troublersome times and I've had GREAT times. One the most important things I learned as a child, a boy, a young man, and now a growing man...is that you cannot get past a decision you don't understand. To understand is to have a reason for that decision to be understood. If you're confused about what I just said. Re-read it. I'm not explaining it. It's easier than you think. 
Stupid decisions, second guesses, wish I dids, and wish I didn'ts, fill everyone's lives. Too many times we try and look to the past for our answers to the future. Too many times we ignore what's in front of us because we are too caught up in what was or what could have been. It's as simple and realizing...no one drives in their car looking through the rear-view mirror. You'll put yourself in a compromising situation if you do so. If you look straight ahead but have the awareness of what was in the past, you can easily learn to how to change the future. Avoidance and learning. Fire is hot. Example? You burned yourself as a child, 10 years later you see fire...are you going to touch it? HELL NO. 
What I have run into a lot lately, and I admit I'm victim to this, is that we dwell on the bad moments of our past so much that we begin to live our lives as if we were still in the past but in the present. Wishful thinking is all it is, and wishful thinking will be the death of you and I until we understand the reason for the decisions made in the past. Depression is (mostly) caused by trying to re-live the past or focusing too much on the past and what you or someone else did wrong. Not taking the information and lesson you could have learned from what went wrong and using it for yourself to learn the reason for the deicision, and understand it...to move on, and better you life, avoiding that situation easily if it were to happen or come close to happening again. I do understand it is hard to get past some of the things that have happened to us but in order to move on and get through life A WHOLE HELL OF A LOT EASIER, you must understand the decision that was made then...to find the reason why it was bad. Once you've done so...there's no reason you cannot move on and adjust your life accordingly for the future. 
I'm no prophet, I'm no martyr, but there are some things that can come as just "common sense" when you really put them into perspective. I have had my fair share (and I'll get more) of situations and oppurtunities that did not go the way I would have liked them to go, but the only way I've been able to move on in my life and avoid such issues or correct such issues was to understand the decision made, find the reason, and I have now...gotten past them. I can only look at what's in front of me and what lies before me. My life. The easy road is the easiest way to lead yourself into destruction.