Several years back, I stumbled on a book by the legendary Dale Carnegie titled, “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living”. In the book, which was published in 1948, Dale gave an interesting analogy.
He narrated the story of a chemistry teacher that walked into his class with a bottle of milk. While teaching, he threw the bottle of milk into the sink and it broke with the milk going down the drain. He gathered the students round and told them — ‘look at the milk; it is spilled. No amount of worrying or complaining will bring it back. DON’T CRY OVER SPILLED MILK!’
That’s a cliché idiomatic expression that seems commonplace. But that graphic illustration blew me away. I was not my failures. Besides, my regrets were never going to change me positively. So I picked myself up and changed my rules.
Over the years, my colleagues in the office have gotten used to me saying “spilled milk” when a situation doesn’t go the way we planned; yes, the milk is spilled and I can’t change the past but I can definitely control the future.
As the year ends, I encourage you to let go of the tags you’ve allowed yourself get labelled because of past situations. Your worrying hasn’t changed anything so far and it may just lead you to unnecessary depression. Isolate what the issues are and aim to do better. Don’t cry over spilled milk.
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