What Enzo Ferrari taught me about letting go

Last year I got my first chance to be a passenger in a Ferrari when we visited friends in Switzerland. One thing is certain at over 200km/h there is no looking back, you have to focus forward.

Today, I found this quote from Enzo Ferrari,

“What’s behind you doesn’t matter.”

We've been taught that our wounds define us and chart our course. We are taught in a society that gives the highest moral value to the victim. Being a victim gets you attention, and in an Instagram world attention is the newest opiate.

Increasingly I've found this way of thinking to be extremely unhelpful. As I've said before, what happened to you in the past can explain some of your life, but not all of it. Continuing to blame the past for everything that happens now is not helpful.

I spent years, some of them in deep therapy, trying to heal past wounds. After spending thousands of rands, and hundreds of hours on comfy chairs talking to strangers, I needed to just stop, let go and forgive.

It doesn't justify what happened, it doesn't make it right, but it was no longer helpful to me to hold onto it.

Letting go, forgiving, takes time. Right now, I'm in the process of having to forgive someone and let me tell you, it's hard and it takes what feels like forever. 

At present it's just a head thing, my heart is not in it, yet. Whenever I get angry or sad about what happened, I note my emotion, stop and say I forgive you ...

Keep on facing forward (perhaps this is why Jesus taught that anyone who looks back while ploughing the field is not worthy of the kingdom?).

Get skin in the game, face forward what is behind you doesn't matter.

Pierre