We all have a mixed bag in the past in our life story. If you decide to stick with the skillful path, that means that the skillful qualities you had in the past are the important ones.

"Even though you may have done a lot of unskillful things in the past, you do have your skillful potentials. And it’s up to you to decide which past actions are the important actions in your life story.

We all have a mixed bag in the past. You can think about this as if someone were writing your life story. And if you decide to stick with the skillful path, that means that the skillful qualities you had in the past are the important ones. If you stray away from the skillful path, that means the unskillful qualities, the unskillful things you did in the past are the important ones.

So as you shape the present, you’re not only shaping the present, but also highlighting different things in your past. So why not highlight the good things? If you find yourself focusing on the bad ones, remind yourself, “At least I had some good qualities in the past and those are the ones that eventually won out. At least they are winning out right now.” If a part of your mind retorts, “While you may be winning out right now, you’re going to lose out further down the line,” you respond, “I don’t care about further down the line. I’m not responsible for further down the line right now. I want to make sure that at least right now I make the right choice.” So at least there is a little uptick in the general line of your life. And once you’ve decided to do that once, you can do it again, and you can do it again, until it becomes a habit."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Views & Vision"

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