Humans are not great ponderers, in my opinion, at least for those living in the Western culture of go-go-go. There seems to be resistance to honest self-assessment. The reaction I often hear is: “It’s in the past, why spend time focused on it?”
I couldn’t disagree more. There’s a huge gap between assessment and spending time in self-flagellation or beating yourself up over past mistakes. The key is to understand what went wrong or which decisions and actions taken were not in alignment with your values. The last and most important part is: how do you move forward, having learned from past mistakes?
One of my favorite books is “The Razor’s Edge” by Somerset Maugham, wherein it becomes profoundly clear that we live life on the edge of a razor, with disaster only millimeters away at all times. Understanding the fragility of life and the impermanence of our existence should serve as a call to self-assessment and reflection.
To put it another way, our death could be seconds away or perhaps another decade or two, but can anyone truly leave a legacy of wisdom without being willing to plumb into the depths of ourselves?
