Trust Yourself

Our memory (when it is working) can be a wondrous thing. My six year old has an incredible memory and it is a solid reminder to me that I should never make a promise I cannot keep (not that I try to do that anyhow) as he is one person who will absolutely call me out on it. But seriously, I’m not really sure what it is in our minds (once again, I am not a doctor so these are simply wonderings of my own mind) that causes us to remember certain things and forget others.

I work in the world of finance and considering what went on in our country in 2007-2009, I find it surprising to see how many folks can forget about this time and decision they made or money they lost, until they find themselves in the middle of another mess. When it comes to hard experiences we go through in our lives, we also seem to forget about these experiences or even bringing lessons we’ve learned in the past into the future with us. Or worse, we disregard what we know.

Either way, it seems to me that we don’t always learn easily and as adults, we seem to be more stubborn about learning from experiences than we are as children. Perhaps because we think we know better.

I will say that I talk to folks every day who seem to have regrets for things they should have done. Maybe instincts they should have trusted or lessons they learned but never put into play. I’m not sure what to say to all of these folks. At this point, it may simply be too late. Then again, they may just be stating what could have been. My lesson from this is that it is important to trust ourselves—our instincts, our experiences—as all we have done has led to this point and the way we feel is a product of that. If we can’t trust ourselves, who can?

Happy writing this week.