7-years flushed down the toilet

So, apparently 7-years worth of emails are unretrievable from my computer. I am far from a computer expert, but they appear to still be on my hard-drive, but are not viewable.

In those 7 years I have stored poems, short-stories, published articles, passwords, articles I found interesting, emails I wanted to keep for posterity. I am a bit of a pack-rat, and I am a bit of a sentimental person, so keeping these things is usually important to me. Seven years of what I considered things important enough to save are now not viewable to me, and possibly never will be again!

It saddens me so very much. I am not very optimistic about seeing them again. They may be on my computer, but I suspect, unless by grace of god (and/or AOL), they are essentially lost to history.

Which gets me thinking. How valuable is ones' history. Are we not only in the moment we are in at all times? This appears to be true both from the angles of Quantum Physics, as well as Eastern Philosophy, but even if it is, so what? Are we not impressionable creatures who base our lives upon moments that, as far as we can perceive, is considered "the past" (even though it may not really be)?

But what of the past? Sometimes the past can be a vice. It can freeze you. Both success and failure exact costs. Experience exacts costs, if you weigh your present upon it. And we all do, right and wrong we do. The past is so very valuable in that sense. It makes up our present, it determines our reactions to that which is "in motion", and therefore it influences our future.

The last 7 years of my life have been interesting ones. I have gone from my last semester of college, to law school, to business school, to the workforce, and now I find myself here....where here is, I do not know. The giant X that I guess I expected to be able to see, is apparently nothing but a mirage. And the real one? Well, perhaps it never really existed at all?

In many ways I find myself in a surreal moment right now. I can not see my 7-years worth of emails, yet I know they are there, somewhere in my computers' "memory". So too, does these last 7 years feel like. They have gone by so fast. They are with me, as they have made what I am today (they are apart of what I am today), and yet, they seem just out of reach.

I suppose in the end the past is the past. We can and should learn from it what we can; we should look back with a soft smile both the good and the bad; we should reminisce, but not become lost in the dreams of what could have been.

One can not, nor should one not, let go of the past completely, but I am reminded that one does not have to be enslaved by it. I truly hope I am able to retrieve these emails (and yes, some of them are VERY VERY valuable...there are passwords I need there, there are works I have done that I don't have saved elsewhere, its VERY VERY important I get them), but at the same time, I recognize that the vast majority of those emails were kept because I'm a pack-rat and I like to hold onto history. This "clinging" is something that can be a detriment.

Letting go should not be mistaken for forgetting it. Letting go just means to not be shackled by it. The past is in the past. What one can change, one should try to (if they deem it worthy), and what one can not, one should learn to accept, and move on (yes this is my new mantra of sorts courtesy of me repeating numerous times on the R&P lol).

The present "is what it is". We must make the most of it. Being "stuck in the past" does us no good. Be here now, as the Zen Buddhists say. And in this moment, right now, I feel so many differing emotions: I feel anger, I feel regret, I feel love, I feel happiness, I feel serenity, and many other emotions all at once. I just have to realize that they are all caused by that which I am made up of....and in that sense, the past will always be with me, even if I can not view the emails and other 'momentos' I have kept with the hopes of "re-glimpsing" and "reliving" it again.

Best of luck to all. Remember, don't be afraid to let go, and for that matter, don't be afraid to embrace. It is fear that stops us from reaching our full potential. That is what "my past" has taught me. :)