Last week I wrote about some advice I received, good advice actually. I related a story of sage advice given me, advice to not spend life looking back in a proverbial rear view mirror, looking forward instead.
Of course having written that .... I've done nothing but look back all week. I'm honest if anything. I will also be the first to admit that I am full of advice but have a hard time taking my own sometimes. So I threw aside the advice and looked back. Looked long, looked hard and looked back.
I saw what I always do. Precisely the reason the priest told me not to keep looking. I saw what things have hurt me, what things have changed me, what things I wish I could forget.
A few comments about that blog made their way to me this week....reasons that looking back can be productive. One person suggested looking back was a way to learn from mistakes, learn from what went wrong. Another proposed that we have far too many good things to view in the rear view to completely ignore it. I do have so much in my life, so many good things to look back on, it's almost a sin to not acknowledge that. So I will agree, agree with both notions....a look back once in a while is a good thing.
I'm still stuck on what I see when I look back, however, the things I don't want to see. So I thought about it for a while, thought about what I see and why it bothers me. Who wants to remember being hurt, being lied to, being betrayed? Who wants to dwell on loss, mistakes made and opportunities squandered? Failures, regrets and disappointments? Certainly not me.
What to do? What to do?
In the end I decided to take that look.... but to look at myself....in that mirror. I can hold a mirror up to my face and see the person I am, see the person I have become. I can see the sum total of what has happened in my life to this point, good as well as bad. I can see the pleasure and I can see the pain. Most of all I can see that for all that's back there, all that has happened, I have stood up, dusted myself off and kept going. I can look in that mirror and let my eye wander to the background, let my eye wander to what's behind me. Then I can look at myself again, look at this wonderful work in progress and see that I am moving forward with my eyes focused on the road ahead.
Smiling to boot.
Indeed.
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