Teach

Day 112. Teach.

There are many lessons to learn from our past. If we could only go back and change something here, something there, things would be better, right? We could stop someone from being somewhere an accident happens, get a loved one to get that lump checked before it becomes inoperable cancer. Not that easy, since everything in the past happened for a reason, and changing it means changing the future. But what if we did things backwards, and try to learn from ourselves in the future instead of changing the past?

How much to learn if we could spend one hour, spend twenty minutes, with the us we will become! How much could we say to the us we were? Richard Bach, The Bridge Across Forever.

I would tell myself to be more patient. I am many things, one of which is impatient. There's never enough time to do everything I want to do, so I struggle with waiting. Hate lines, hate waiting to be seated at a restaurant, hate standing in line to buy tickets for a movie, hate it hate it hate it. So unproductive. But as I get older, I see the value in doing these things. You can make a new friend while waiting for a seat. You might find an old friend while in line at the grocery store. Someone in line at the theatre might have seen the movie you planned on, and after they said it was crappy you saved the $10 and saw something else.

I'd also tell my younger self that it's okay to be funny, even at what seem to be inappropriate times. Humor gets us through the bad times, and makes the good times even better. Holding back that funny memory serves no one: if it was funny to them when it happened, it's funny again when they're gone. Pain doesn't make things less funny, it just makes the world need fun more. Getting past loss, getting over anger, both can be easier if you lighten up.

My future self might also warn me that my judgement on fake people isn't always perfect. People will disappoint us. I used to think I could spot that better than I actually can. Sometimes, especially in the last dozen years or so, I've been sure I knew real friends from fakes. I've been fooled a few times, mostly in the past year. My responsibility, people are always true to themselves first so that's on me for being disappointed. In myself, more than the fakes. Future me gets better at this, I hope.

Lesson One Hundred Twelve: Don't take life so seriously, be open to what you might become.

618 to go...