You may ask, what’s adding a little sizzle hurt any?

It’s not extra energy that you bring to table as long as it’s your true personality. It is egregious transformation from you knowing who you are, to a personality that you may or may not realize is fraudulent.

Whether you call it fake, phony, fraudulent, multiple personalities or whatever, it pretty much adds up to same thing. It is not who you are. I know, I, not unlike millions of others, had taken on ‘Mr. Hollywood’ whenever a situation called for it and my color changed like a chameleon to suit my environment.

Adolescents are always trying to one up each other in order to cement themselves into an ever-changing social structure. You may see it at mall when a pack of thirteen year old girls float through an area you are shopping and their volume is much more accentuated than that of 99% of everyone elses..

It is almost as though, since everyone else is always trying to put on their respective show to world that if you don’t, you’re afraid you won’t stand out; you’ll be bland and boring. When you’re not trying to impress world with your made up personality, you’re just that regular Joe that you or anyone else will see as unique.

That mindset couldn’t be farther from truth! In fact, when you change your fundamental persona to suit your environment, you not only hurt yourself with a lie, but you lie to everyone you put this on for. It may be your friends, it may be your family or both.

So what would happen if you didn’t put on your plastic face everyday? Wouldn’t you be letting everyone down who depends on that persona to entertain them, to make their existence better? Wouldn’t you be lying again by being you because you’ve always been lying?

This could not only ruin your social life, but possibly get you fired because your boss may expect that outgoing salesperson he first hired. All of a sudden, you want to be you instead of fantasy that’s magnetic, appealing and irresistible.

Well, that is certainly not what I mean. What I do mean is when a past is littered with seemingly overwhelming pain, it impedes one’s ability to move forward and adjust to this ever-changing world. A good analogy would be of a backpack filled with distressful memories that one tries to swim with, but it always seems to weigh you down, allowing you to merely breathe, is quite fitting.

This backpack, even though not physically attached to one’s body, seems like some type of appendage that ridding oneself of is unbelievably difficult or painful. So, as humans do, we many times avoid, at all costs, detachment of this pain because it has indelibly been written into a past as if in stone.

Therefore, using it as an old wooden crutch to not live our lives to its fullest potential, is how many people see their past. These excuses fill our lives with procrastination and that procrastination is an excellent way of delaying a healthier future, devoid of these negative memories.

If, for example, a series of painful experiences throughout your childhood, like verbal or sexual abuse, always seem to haunt your ability to progress in your interpersonal relationships. In turn, you subconsciously sabotage these relationships by not giving enough of yourself, or verbally giving too much of yourself.

Fundamentally, mindset of intertwining past with present hurts everything you come in contact with, because backpack is still around your aching shoulder.

Getting rid of backpack may be hardest thing you can do, but consider cost of maintaining its existence? A mind polluted with pain is not only counterproductive, but can sometimes be dangerous, given wrong person and situation.

Well then, how do I know if my past is hurting my future?