The Magic of Moving On

Recently, I read an email from a band that was calling it quits after over twenty years of music together. They were re-releasing their final album with a new bonus song entitled "End of an Era" to solidify the finality of the moment.

The lead singer's words as he explained that final song really resonated with me because they were so profound. He said, "...it is time to move on and put a period on the end of what has been a beautiful sentence and musical chapter of our lives."

That got me thinking, "What is at the end of the sentence in my life in this chapter?" I've spoken before about letting dead things go in our lives because there are times when the sentence of that time of our life ends in a period of finality. We did all we could, but it didn't work out like we envisioned it would. We are left waiting for a resolution to the story.

Sometimes, it's hard for us to believe a particular period of life will end the way it does because we are bombarded with movies and stories where the bad guy pays in the end, and the good guys always win. Unfortunately, that's not always true. Sometimes, the good guys just don't win, and the villain of your story rides off triumphantly into the sunset. It may be hard to accept that there might not be a third-act turnaround.

But that doesn't mean the story has to end there. Maybe that chapter ends, and that's okay. It just means it's time for a new chapter to begin. A fresh page has been turned in your story, and now you decide what happens next. Do you hold onto that moment of temporary defeat and allow it to define who you will be from this point forward, or do you say, "Lesson learned" and keep on going?

Here are three things I learned this year about reaching the end of a chapter in life:

1) Don't relive the moment of defeat...learn from it. Hindsight is twenty/twenty. I can promise you that the perfect final line in that argument you had will come to you--about two hours after the argument is over. That remarkable thing you should have said or done will suddenly become apparent long after it is useful. But that moment is over and can't be replayed. Instead of beating yourself over the head and reliving the argument over and over again in your imagination with your new, better ending, learn from it. What could you have done differently? Is there anything you could have said that would have changed the way things turned out? If so, be ready next time. If not, let it go.

2) Turn the page and start the new chapter without looking back. Did you lose a job or relationship you feel you'll never be able to replace? It might truly have been a unique opportunity that won't repeat itself in life, but keep looking forward. Don't look back at what you lost and lament what may never be again. Instead, look at the blank page in front of you and decide what you want to write on it. You can't change your past, but you can shape your future.

3) Make plans for the future. The problem with facing a catastrophic event is that we can often spend a long time wandering aimlessly through life. We think, "What's the point? I'll just be disappointed again." Maybe we're even waiting for that moment to be erased and for someone else to say, "I was wrong, and I need to fix this," so we can go back to life as it was. Maybe you'll get lucky and that will happen, but in all probability it won't, so don't sit in neutral waiting. A lack of direction rarely leads to a good place. On the other hand, if we clearly plan out the next steps we want to take and define the destination we want to reach in life, we take control again. Maybe the bad situation made you feel like you lost control or never had it in the first place, so change that story. Figure out what your next step is and start moving in a better direction.

One of my favorite books is The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury, an anthology of various stories. Life is a lot like a book of short stories. Maybe one story ended better than you expected, and another ended differently than you thought it should, but once you turn the page, get ready for another story to begin! Don't turn back and re-read anything; it won't change. But something better can come next.

Look ahead, no matter what your year has been like up to this point. Maybe you didn't get to choose whether the last sentence in this chapter of your life ended with a period or a question mark. Keep pushing forward. Don't give up, because your story isn't over yet.

Turn the page and get ready for another adventure!