lessening the past

Hello friend—you’re receiving this email as a part of morning reading, a daily reflection on the parts of life worth living for that you signed up for sometime last year. I've got a laundry list of additions, designs updates, and website pieces I want to make, but ultimately, I just wanted to bring this back. Thank you for reading, and a very happy New Year. 

Lessons from HistoryJanuary 28

Good morning, friend.Henry Kissinger said “it’s rare we learn lessons from history, even more rare we learn the right ones.” Which is a quote Henry Kissinger probably could have used to avoid one of the many situations he’s found himself in throughout his life. One of the biggest problems of history, here meaning “problems about history itself”, is that people tend to treat it with an undue level of respect, like a dusty old book on a shelf. Then they write all sorts of pithy, postable quotes about “history being circular” or “those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.”Of course, most people saying those things don’t read history themselves. But that’s not even the larger travesty: most of us not only fail to learn from history, we more deeply fail to learn from our own history. We assume the lessons of history begin some 50-100 years ago when the most potent lessons are probably available to you, in your own head, from the last week to year. So if you want to learn from the broader scope of history, begin by looking back at the big events of your life. Ask not just what you would do differently, but what did you get wrong?Think back to the beginning of 2020 when the news of Covid first hit: what did you think? What were your reactions? Where did you source your news, how bad did you think things were going to be? It’s not that any of us could, at any point, hold a crystal ball, with anything like certain knowledge of a certain future…But if you want to learn from the mistakes of others, it might pay to begin by learning from the mistakes of yourself. Not with malice, or to put yourself down…But as the seed of knowledge that could grow into a broader understanding of humanity has reacted to events,Yourself included.     Journal Prompt: What's an event from your past you learned from?