Just last night I experienced such a pang of nostalgia for a certain time in my life that it felt as though my heart physically ached.Have you ever experienced that? Have you ever experienced the briefest of moments when you lose touch with who you are now and tether yourself to an old version of yourself?Just like when you pick up an old toy you used to play with, or see someone who was your I'd-die-for-you best friend laugh with someone else.It hurts, but you don't know why - because that's not your life, and hasn't been for awhile.For me, it happens an awful lot. Especially lately when my life has changed so much and so quickly.When my new experiences are stressful it's as though I think of my past as that fairy-tale time before I turned Pinocchio became real.No longer a puppet, I can't hide behind wooden limbs now.But why do we do this, as people? Why do we willingly choose to flick our gaze between a Polaroid picture made from faulty memory and the reality of the crystal clear present?As recently as last night, I fell into the trap of idolizing my past, so that when I looked around at my new life, in my new house, in this new town, I felt disorientated, but mostly, disappointed.How ridiculous!This universe doesn't give us what we ask for, what we try so tirelessly to manifest, when we look at what we had.The more I think about that the more absolutely foolish it seemed to me to idolize the past. Think about it:Right now, right in this moment, you are breathing. Breath. Blood. Bones. Upright and unyielding - the very definition of a powerhouse.A powerhouse does not need the past and has no place for doubt. A powerhouse thrives by existing in the present and planning for the future.Being a powerhouse is a state of mind rather than a state of being. A state of sheer knowledge that you have absolute control over what you allow yourself to experience in life.Of course, you cannot control whether lightening strikes your house or whether a flood destroys your property.But you have all of the strength of a powerhouse to harness how you experience great happiness as well as great loss.Just as you were in your past, you are both lighted torch and soothing water against your doubts about your present.For a long time, I was petrified. And that's the truth.I'd ask myself: What if I never experience that kind of happiness again? What I don't achieve my goals? What if I fail?They are the mere whispers of fear but are enough to make me grab onto the claws of the past and contemplate my past happiness, my past achievements.I was a power to be reckoned with that chose to capitulate from fear. After all, the Polaroid memory of the past is easy and certain and my absolute hopes for the future are subject to my own doubt.But not anymore.Nothing sounds more ridiculously stupid than choosing to be a willing victim to fear when you have already proven to be a powerhouse of the present.Hold the reigns of your memories tightly. Anchor yourself in the present with the astounding belief that you exceptional.Admit that it takes strength to know your strength.Be a powerhouse of the present and not an echo of the past.Be a powerhouse of the present without any earth shattering effort. Simply choose which way to look - forward or behind.Behind is done, though it may ache. What is ahead is what glitters and shines with possibility of achieving what success means to you.After all, you are breath, blood and bones - upright and unyielding.