Why Can’t You Undo or Redo It?

The past has come and gone, and change is the only constant.Photo by Colin Lloyd on Unsplash

One of the central tenets of the current American administration – if they have any genuine tenets to speak of – is to undo decades of progress.

Environmental protections to ensure people have access to clean air and water? Fuck that, it cuts into corporate profits and economic growth. Equal rights for women, LGBTQA+, and people of color? Fuck that, the white men need their shining mediocrity to feel powerful. Affordable health care, vaccine access, and science-based policy? Fuck that shit, let’s just burn it to the ground for no reason anyone can fathom.

It’s infuriating, it’s scary, and it’s utterly senseless. How did we get here? Because a whole swath of people refuse to accept that you can’t undo or redo the past. Progress is a natural part of the flow of the Universe. Everything grows, changes, evolves, and advances, whether it’s animal, vegetable, or mineral.

This can’t be addressed in the collective consciousness of any given community, nation, or the world. It can only be addressed by you and me for ourselves.

That begins by recognizing an important, ineffable, universal truth.

Change is the only constant in the Universe

Like it or not, shit changes. All the time. Hell, you’ve changed. Maybe only a little, maybe more physically than mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. But you have. And you still will going forward.

Everyone and everything changes. We live in a world today where a ton of diseases were eradicated by vaccines less than a hundred years ago. Yet a small number of loud, opinionated assholes have convinced people that vaccines cause more harm than good. That’s simply not true. And yet, here we are, and this shit has only begun its flight to the given fans it’ll hit.

Whatever the subject, change is the one and only constant in the Universe. No matter what it is, it has, can, does, and will keep changing. Every single human being changes from an infant to a toddler to an adolescent to a teen to an adult to a geriatric, unless death intervenes along the way. The sun rises and sets daily. Seasons turn. Change is everywhere in everything.

Some people find change impossible to cope with. They do everything in their power to wield any control whatsoever that they can find – real or imagined – to arrest, combat, and turn back change. Then, because mental health is treated like an unimportant, second-hand matter, nobody bothers to teach anyone how to work with and handle change.

That leads to where we are now. Frightened, uncertain, lost people seeking to undo or redo it.

You can’t undo or redo it

The past has come and gone. It’s literally passed you by. Now that it’s happened, you can’t undo it or redo it.

This is because it’s done. Over. Finished. What’s happened has happened, and that’s the end of it. Would I have preferred not to have been hit by a car crossing the street? Yes. Can I undo or redo it? No. Why? Because that happened in November of 1999, it’s now 2025, and I can’t undo or redo what happened nearly 26 years ago.

Nobody can undo or redo it. Another reason is because you can only control yourself, and only right here, right now. The past has passed, so any control you had has passed. The future is full of unknowns, so you can’t control what will be because you can’t and don’t know it.

What you can control is incredibly limited, but also incredibly empowering. That’s because all your control is in yourself.

You alone control what you’re thinking, what and how you’re feeling, your intentions, the positivity or negativity of your approach, and your actions. On the surface, that might not look like much. But in truth, it’s everything about you that makes you, you.

Your physical body doesn’t get angry, joyful, contemplative, or any other emotion, approach, or sense. That’s all based on your mental, emotional, and spiritual self. Your physical body is only 25 percent of who, what, where, how, and why you are. The spiritual, mental, and emotional make up the other 75 percent, and you alone have complete, total, and utter control of these.

More active, conscious awareness of yourself is how you can have any impact on anyone or anything else in the Universe.

Photo by Hadija on UnsplashMindfulness for the win

Mindfulness is just as simple as it is complicated. It’s simple because it’s entirely in your control. However, it’s complicated because it can only be accessed in the now.

When it comes to the past, we love to work on ideas to undo or redo it. But that’s not possible. Then we look to the future, often trying to guide it to look like the past. That also doesn’t work because change means the past has been passed.

When you stop looking back and looking ahead, you can bring your attention to the here and now. That opens the way for you to be present, actively consciously aware, and thus apply mindfulness.

With applied mindfulness, you can see clearly, right here and now, your thoughts, feelings, approach, intentions, and actions. With that insight, if you don’t like what you find, you can change it.

You can’t undo or redo it, no matter what “it” is. Change has made that so. You can make active, conscious choices and decisions, right here and now. Those decisions, for yourself, empower you.

Empowerment is the only real, true power. It’s not given to you by God, politicians, religious leaders, gurus, or business moguls. It’s already yours. Mindfulness lets you see the truth of this.

Don’t waste your time and energy trying to undo or redo it

While it’s important to know what’s happening in the world around you, you also need to recognize and acknowledge that you can’t do jack shit about it.

Sorry, you have no control over anyone or anything out there. You, however, have 100 percent control over you and your life experience.

What you do with that is on you. Yes, you can spend time and energy attempting to undo or redo this, that, or the other thing. However, the truth is that you’ll get nowhere fast. Change has made it impossible to undo or redo it.

This, FYI, is the only place where true impossibility exists. Even if you undo or redo something, it won’t be the same as what it was. That’s because what it was has come and gone. It, you, this, that, and the other thing, the whole Universe, has succumbed to change in one way or another.

Be here now. Open yourself to being more mindful. With that, you become empowered. When I’m empowered, I share elements of my philosophy with the world to do what I can to help others find their empowerment. This is my coping mechanism, but also my way of striving to make a positive and useful difference in the world.

Recognize and acknowledge the ineffability of change. Then, recognize and acknowledge that you can’t undo or redo it. From the present moment that brings you to, use your active conscious awareness to make choices and decisions for your life experience.

The power of choice and actions is yours. Make use of it to be the best you that you can be.

Do you see why you can’t undo or redo it, whatever “it” may be?

This is the seventh-hundred-sixteenth (716) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to repost and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.

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