I've lived long enough to look back upon my life with perspective; I've been many places, had many experiences, met and interacted with so many people, done good things and bad and have lived a lot of life.
Over the time I've come to understand that life passes rapidly like a raging torrent of water pushing under the bridge that is our life leaving the moments behind in our memories. Those moments are valuable to us and yet much of the time we only come to understand that once they are gone and sometimes take the moments for granted when in them.
I read a post recently about a person whose parent embarrassed them -nit's happened to us all - and as I read a story from my own past popped to mind, a time I was embarrassed by my mother as a young child.
The moment
My family struggled financially and I always took my lunch to school from home rather than buy it at the school canteen like other kids; my parents couldn't afford that. Due to consistent emotional and physical victimisation at school all I ever wanted to do was fit in, as if that would make the victimisation stop, so I saved up for a while, did chores and things for a few cents here and there, and finally had enough to buy my lunch at school. I was about seven at the time.
That morning, I took my mum-packed lunch out of my school bag, hid it under my bed and went to school thinking about buying a cheese sandwich and a cake at the canteen like the "normal kids".
Around mid-morning though, in walked mum with my lunch and in front of everyone in the class handed it to me with the words, you know we cannot afford to buy lunch at school, or something to that effect. I wanted to fall into a hole, die, and get covered up forever. I took the lunch and ate it later and the money went into my money box. I felt very embarrassed.
I had a funny name and was a different colour to the other kids and from day one was never allowed to forget it in a school and town that was very white. I had thought buying my lunch would make them see me differently, accept me, and stop the brutality I was subjected to daily, I was only seven after all, but instead it managed to get me teased even more; another thing to pick on the weird kid about. It sucked really.
Remembering
That memory came to mind prompted by that post and I thought about it and how time had taken that embarrassing and hurtful moment and turned it into a lesson that carried forward and worked to my advantage.
Looking back on it, and other such moments, I see that it built character, taught ownership and responsibility, the value of honesty, understanding of self, resilience, individuality, tolerance, the ability to take a hit (I received many of those a a little kid), fall over and stand back up...all things I learned in those years as a child and all through small moments like I mention above despite the significance of those moments slipping by unnoticed at the time.
They say time brings clear vision but I disagree. Time brings the opportunity for clear vision, perspective, clarity, understanding and so forth; not everyone picks up on it though.
I believe that most of the answers to the future can be found in the past. Experiencing adversity, failure, success, disappointment, loss, embarrassment, happiness, pain, anything really, gives us a chance to take lessons away, move forward differently, and so...do I believe remembering things from the past can be of great value? Does it bring wisdom? I guess so, but only if the lessons stick, changes are made and forward progression occurs.
This is simply my opinion, loosely based around some deeper thoughts I've had over the last few days and weeks. I'm glad I read that post triggering that memory of the little me who desperately wanted to be "normal" like everyone else at a time in which I was made to feel like a valueless, disgusting creature to be abused and shunned by my peers. I learned so much from that and other experiences in my life and whilst many people may perceive me as valueless still, I know differently.
I wonder what your experiences have been around remembering past situations and experiences later on in life and how they may have helped or hindered you, changed your thoughts and attitudes and how they may have affected your actions. Maybe you'd like to talk about the changes within yourself which time has wrought, or about how you've allowed learning-opportunities pass by due to your inability to see them.
Feel free to comment on that, or anything, if you'd like to.
Design and create your ideal life, tomorrow isn't promised - galenkp
[Original and AI free]
The image in this post is my own.