06/14/2015
Hope for the Past(for your childhood)!
I ran across this poem a year ago, and I've been thinking about it ever since. It's a poem about how we relate to the past—a question that's relevant at any age, not least when you're old enough to have more past than future!
The past isn't fixed and frozen in place. Instead, its meaning changes as life unfolds. I once lost a job. At the time, it felt as if I'd come to the end of the road. But after a while, I was able to see how that loss helped guide me toward my true life-work. My job-loss was a blessing, not a curse.
I've made many mistakes and often failed to live up to my highest aspirations—but I don't need to look back with regret. Instead, I can see all of my mess-ups as humus or compost for the growing I needed to do.
I love the fact that the word "humus" is related to "humility." The good I do today may well have its roots in something not-so-good I did in the past. Knowing that takes me beyond both the sinkhole of regret and the ego-inflation of pride.
Regret shuts life down. Humility opens it up. So Robert Frost was right—we CAN have hope for the past as well as the future!
