In today’s world, it’s so easy to reread your last chapter. Literally. Pages of blog posts. Facebook timelines. Twitter posts. It’s so easy to look back, it only takes a click of a button, a page saved, an album reviewed.

Breakups are messy, and these days, almost always public. The changing of relationship statuses. Instagram posts from “Mondates!” to “Finding myself at my first solo adventure”. Vague twitter posts about singlehood. We’ve all done it, and for the extremists, we’ve deleted all the accounts that had any speck of connection to the ex, and started anew.

But on weak, quiet nights, we look back. Check their accounts, see if they’re happy. If you see them moving on, mourn the loss. If it was a bad breakup, you get angry. So many things make things so easy to see that maybe we don’t need to, and maybe we shouldn’t.

True, we wouldn’t have been the person we are now if not for the experiences you shared with an ex. You couldn’t just write off a previous relationship to nothing. If it was a bad one, you learned from it. If it was a great one that couldn’t work, you knew how good could be, and would know to cherish it the next time you find it.

But we need to stop looking back and now look forward. Use the excuse of a “new year, new life” to do so, use a makeover, or a new job, but do it.

Take this closed chapter, learn from it and move on. Stop looking back because it ended for a reason. Cherish the people you have with you now, and use the time you have instead to better yourself, make good on the promises you made to you.

As for me, chapter’s opened, and I’m doing my darndest to make it a good one. I might bump and bruise myself along the way, but it’s what you get for the pursuit of happiness.