Monday,
December 5, 2011
Today's Gift
Life can only be
understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards. -- Soren Kierkegaard
One of Mark Twain's most interesting writings
states we should live life backwards from the age of eighty to the time we were
just a gleam in someone's eye. How much more we'd learn, he felt, if we already
knew how to live before we had to.
We may fantasize sometimes about going back with
the tools of the program we're using today to our families, our high schools, or
our dating years. It may please us to think of how "together" we would be with
such tools, knowing what we know now.
But we can't live backwards. Every year we move
along in age, experience, maturity, and wisdom. Sometimes we only see such
growth on birthdays, when we look back to a year ago at who we were then and who
we are now. As our years advance, so do we. Sometimes we need to take a brief
look backward in order to see this.
Today I'll remember that to see my growth all I
have to do is look at where I was a year ago. I have advanced in age, but I've
also advanced in wisdom and maturity.
From the book Night Light by Amy E. Dean
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