reflect writing

If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?

I would erase the power that the past has over the mind.The images of the past can be stubborn. They return again and again, carrying resentment, hatred, fear, and unfinished stories.

The toddler may have been small, but the memories grew alongside her, sometimes making it feel as though the old playmates were still pulling her mind backward.For years, the mind could become trapped in the same circle: remembering, questioning, imagining, resenting, and returning to the same painful places.

But there comes a moment when the circle must break.This is the 360-degree turn.The toddler no longer needs to fight with the past. She no longer needs to understand every person’s motives or solve every mystery left behind. She does not need to carry people who no longer belong in her present life.

Some relationships can simply end.

Some memories can simply fade.

Some doors can remain permanently closed.

And there is relief in that.I no longer want to measure my life through the hatred of others. If someone chooses to remain bitter, that is their burden.

I do not have to make it mine.Even ordinary things—a can opening, a sudden gust of wind, a familiar sound—can trigger an old image. But an image is only an image. I can see it without becoming it.The mind can say:“That was then.

This is now.”I return to the breath.I return to the room.I return to the work in front of me.I return to writing.

The Bhagavad Gita begins with Arjuna surrounded by the weight of history, family, relationships, fear, and confusion:“Dharma-kṣetre kuru-kṣetre…”“On the field of dharma, on the field of Kurukshetra…”— Bhagavad Gita 1.1

But Krishna does not tell Arjuna to run backward into the past. He teaches him to see clearly and perform his duty in the present.

That becomes my turning point too.

I cannot rewrite yesterday.

I cannot control another person’s mind.

I can erase every memory by force.

I can pull myself out of those memories.

I can choose what I do with this moment.And I can write a different ending.

The ultimate freedom is not waiting for people to disappear from the world. It is reaching the point where their existence no longer controls your inner world.Then the burden lifts.

The mind becomes its own again.

And the Gita ends with Arjuna restored to clarity:“Kariṣye vacanaṁ tava.”“I will do as You say.”— Bhagavad Gita 18.73

So I choose to move forward.No going back.No living inside old images.No carrying yesterday into today.

The toddler is no longer trapped in the past. She has returned to herself.

The past is history.

The present is life.

And the next page is mine to write.