Today I Begin a New Life

One of my favorite books is Og Mandino's The Greatest Salesman in the World.  Even though I'm not a salesman, I read this book once a year.  By following the words of the Ten Scrolls, I learn ways to better myself in every aspect of life.

The first scroll is titled, "Today I Begin a New Life":

Today I shed my old skin, which hath, too long, suffered the bruises of failure and the wounds of mediocrity...Failure will no longer be my payment for my struggle.  Just as nature made no provision for my body to tolerate pain, neither has it made any provision for my life to suffer failure.  Failure, like pain, is alien to my life.  In the past I accepted it...Now I reject it.

I try not to dwell on the past, especially past mistakes.  What's the point?  It's done.  I can't change anything that happened so there's no reason to beat myself up over it.

What I can do, though, is decide that starting today I will overcome those past failures.  As Og Mandino writes in the final paragraph of the First Scroll, "Today my old skin has become as dust.  I will walk tall among men and they will know me not, for today I am a new man, with a new life."

My new life starts today.