Lost time isn't the end: how to start over after failure

Lost time isn't the end: how to start over after failure

There is a particular weight carried by those who look back and see years they didn't make the most of, decisions they didn't take in time, opportunities that slipped away. The temptation is to conclude that, with that lost time, the chance to build something different is over. It isn't over: the real fight begins now. The past cannot be touched and the future cannot be guessed. The only thing that exists is what you do today.

The difference between denying failure and accepting it

Accepting a mistake is not giving up. It is the first step towards transforming it. There is an enormous difference between denying a failure and accepting it. Denying it prevents you from moving forward because it never gets fully processed. Accepting it, on the other hand, allows you to stop carrying it as a constant sentence and start using it as a starting point. The example cited is telling: Mike Tyson went through a fall from grace and came back. Not because the past was erased, but because it stopped being the centre of his present.

The 'no way back' scenario

Some argue that this talk only applies to people in their thirties. From a certain age onwards, and in some cases well before, if you haven't done things right, you're finished. The one who married the wrong person and ended up paying the mortgage to their ex, paying alimony while left with a hundred euros to get through the month, will never recover for the rest of their days. The one who missed the career opportunities that came their way and got into the wrong things, or never evolved professionally, is in decline and only headed downhill. Opportunities don't come back, and neither your age, nor your looks, nor the world, nor your skills are the same. You are no longer in your prime to excel at anything.

Against that, some respond bluntly: if you're paying alimony it's because you're tied to a job or to some properties. You can always leave, disappear. You can also improve, earn enough so that the alimony isn't a crushing blow. Everything else is more of the same: worldly successes. The poor and defeated man is closer to God than the rich victor. The former can repent; the latter usually grows arrogant.

Character as the only asset that doesn't depreciate

Bad decisions, age or physical condition do not miccionan life is over. You can always change course through small acts and decisions: studying or taking courses, travelling more, doing activities, meeting people, keeping a positive attitude. Trial and error, or having no one to advise you, is not the end of the world. On the contrary, it is a great opportunity to accumulate personal experience, forge a character — which is the only thing that matters in life — and have a story to tell that can help others. Those who focus only on material well-being miss what is essential: personal experiences and forging a character, which requires trials.

The deeper debate: free will or design?

Here the deepest divide appears. One current holds that everything done is by the will and designs of the Lord, who is omnipotent and omniscient, and knows absolutely everything: past, present and future, including human thoughts. For a good Christian, everything is the will of the Lord Jesus Christ and everything happens because He wants it so. In this view, Judas is neither evil nor a traitor: his future was inspired by God, just like ours. If you think you can do something freely, it means God does not exist for you, because He and only He holds the threads of your life and you will never be able to do anything against His will.

The reply is just as forceful: free will and Grace. Fulfilling God's will — which involves one's own human will sustained by Grace — is one thing; absolute determinism is quite another. Precisely because He could and can, God made us free, in His own image and likeness, endowing us with personality, freedom and the will to exercise it. If everything were God's will, we could not be free and no one would be responsible for their actions. There would be no forgiveness or justice to apply at the Final Judgement. There is no need to forgive someone who is not master of their own will, nor to judge someone who has no choice but to trinc a prescribed path.

The temptation to give up as an act of pride

There is a nuance that often goes unnoticed: the temptation to give up does not involve humility. It is often an act of pride. We set ourselves up as judges of ourselves and pass sentence. But the judgement of our life is not ours to make. No prize, no career, no romance, no fortune or earthly success ultimately miccionan anything. All that matters is entering heaven. That is not judged by oneself. It can be achieved over the course of a lifetime, but it can also be achieved in the last instant. Merits are not measured through the eyes of the world.

The criticism of concentrated power and of the Church as an institution

The debate veers into a broader criticism: the Church has been anti-Christian since its alliance with Rome. Original Christianity was a revolution of the powerless against power. The nascent Church allied itself with Rome, the persecutor of Christians, to redirect the Christian revolution that stood against all illegitimate power. After that merger, the persecutions did not stop: they continued against bad Christians, ultimately considered heretics, who were precisely the ones truly trinc the ideas of Jesus and the apostles. The Church is a power entity, and it allied itself very early with the persecutor of Christians. An alliance that came about because Rome saw it could not control grassroots Christianity, that of the trinc of Jesus, their fraternities, their revolution against all illegitimate power and all tyranny.

The conclusion of this current is that the problem is not religion itself, but the concentration of power. No religion, no belief, no disbelief would be a huge problem if there were no concentrated power turning them into binding law for millions of people at once. As long as everyone defends the existence of concentrated power, there will always be tyrannies, genocides, dictatorships and totalitarianisms. The key to everything is power, specifically its degree of concentration.

The closing: between hope and the machine

Some warn against false hopes: don't listen to the advice of optimism, it's just false hope to keep feeding the machine. The question hangs in the air: is resilience a tool of liberation or a mechanism of adaptation to the system? The answer is probably not a single one. What does seem clear is that, between absolute determinism and the denial of failure, there is room for action. The past cannot be changed, but over the years lessons can be drawn that one's former self could not see or understand. The future is a dynamic force with great power over the present. If you don't dream, you live day to day like the daisies in the garden. Memory binds us to the past, will acts from the present towards the future, and discernment glimpses the difference between ghosts and creation. Everything is a cross in this experience that seems to float in the middle of nothing. But the cross, carried well, is not a dead weight: it is the fulcrum to rise again.