Viewing Our Past with Generosity

Every once in a while, the opportunity presents itself to dive back into our past. I’m not talking about general rumination on how things could have been, but on the objects or artifacts we stumble across out of the blue. 

Sometimes this looks like sifting through old pictures or picking up an ancient journal. Sometimes we go hunting for something practical and stumble on a memory instead. 

When this happens, it can feel jarring or disheartening. We can look at that high school prom picture and say, “egads! How depressing was that experience?” And then shove it back into the closet or dusty box it came from.

But in these moments of serendipity, of the universe calling our attention to what was, I see an opportunity to reorient ourselves and reflect. It’s an opportunity to contemplate who we once were through the lens of curiosity and kindness. But doing that – instead of beating up on our past self – takes effort and a conscious choice.

Fodder for the Inner Critic

Here’s a recent example of what I’m talking about. 

When I lose momentum on a post (as has been happening a lot in recent months), I label it “draft” and set it free into the ether of my google drive folder. A couple weeks back, I searched “draft” in my account, and in addition to the dozen or so abandoned blog posts, I came across a paper I wrote for a graduate school seminar back in 2008.

Now, this paper is something I spent quite a bit of time on and have very little recollection of writing. Probably because it’s something I wrote sixteen years ago. And looking at it, I both do and don’t recognize the writing. I know I wrote it, but it’s also totally foreign to me.

Historically, I would have chosen to look at that paper through a critical lens (the one we so often pick up when looking backward). I would read it and see how I spent so much of my academic writing citing a million sources in an effort to prove to myself and my professors that I knew what I was talking about. 

In that paper, I would find evidence of my insecurity. My “oh my god, please tell me I’m smart enough to be here” desperation. I would see my posturing, and my attempts to prove I deserved to be there. Reading that paper would be a great opportunity to beat myself up for being such a bad academic writer.

Instead! I get to choose to approach that paper (and my younger self) with more kindness and curiosity. I can treat it as an opportunity to look back at who I was sixteen years ago and see how precious I was at the time. How I was just starting to figure it all out. How I was growing into myself, slowly and awkwardly – but in a cute way! 

In other words, I can choose to look at it through the lens of generosity and compassion.

This morning, looking back at that paper, I see myself as an adorable little foal, trying to get her legs under her. It’s awkward, it’s clumsy, and it’s so stinkin’ cute.

But it takes effort to access that kind of generosity for our past selves. The inner critic would much rather take the mic. 

The Cruelty of Hindsight through the Inner Critic’s Eyes

The inner critic likes to look at my past and come up with a big long list of “should have knowns.” It tells me I should always already know better. No matter what the circumstance, I am supposed to know better. To have known better. To have done better and been better without ever having to have been in the learning process. 

How could I not see that I was over-relying on quotations in that paper?

How could I not see that I had a drinking problem?

How could I not see that the person I was dating wasn’t actually very nice to me? 

How could I not see that I deserved better?

How could I not see the ways that my insecurity and neediness were driving people away/turning into a self-fulfilling prophecy?

How could I not see how desperate I was?

How could I not see that being suicidal in 8th grade because I was so mercilessly bullied for being overweight does actually qualify as trauma?

How could I not see I needed help?

Because I couldn’t see it yet. Because I didn’t know. And it’s so deeply unfair and unkind to let my inner critic tell me I should have.

We Get to Choose the Lens

When looking back, we can always find evidence to feed the inner critic. But what does that serve? What does being mean to our cute, little former selves do for us?

Not much good. Has being mean to yourself ever actually improved matters? 

It hasn’t for me.

When we know better, we do better. Not before. 

And the only way to know better is to work on it. To give myself permission to always be in the learning, and to continually look at where I am in relation to where I want to be and where I’ve been.

Rather than letting the inner critic take over and use my current understanding to beat up on my past self, I can pick a different perspective. I can decide to look for my growth instead of my failings. 

What if I could look at my life like a rough draft? That every year (or equally arbitrary chunk of time) is just another chapter going through a revision process? What would open up or change? What kind of compassion and generosity would I be able to extend to my younger self?

[For personal fun with this concept, I’m going to make a new copy of each version of this post as it evolves/each day that I work on it – see notes below to geek out with me.] 

Choosing the Generosity of Hindsight

What would shift if you looked back at your past self with the recognition that you were just a baby? Obviously, we need to go back a ways for this to work, but what if even just last year, you look back and see how adorable you were in trying to figure the thing out?

We are all always just trying to figure shit out. And I don’t think that’s a process that ever ends. I don’t think I’ll ever arrive. I won’t hit mastery, per se, because I’m just going to keep tinkering.

I don’t write academic papers anymore (thank fuck). I don’t write theater reviews. I don’t write marketing blogs about cybersecurity. I write these blog posts, in the authorial voice that feels most resonant to me in this moment, and that will probably evolve over time.

Maybe in three years, I’ll change my mind about writing so many sentence fragments. Or about starting sentences with conjunctions. Maybe I’ll cringe at my liberal use of profanity or slang. I don’t fuckin’ know!

What I do know is that I want to continue to grow, to learn, and to evolve. And that means that I’ll always be in process. And that things will change. And that self-love and self-compassion are built on being nice to myself, first and foremost. 

So maybe go muck around and find something to look back on with a new perspective. Pick up a piece of the past and look at it with love and affection, with a sense of curiosity and generosity for who you once were. Look for the ways you’ve grown. Look for how marvelous you’ve become since then. The evidence is there if you look for it, I promise.

**Notes**

[Draft 1 is a great big brain dump that I already find comically sprawling. In Draft 2, I cut some shit and added in headers. Draft 3, I cut more shit and moved things around. Draft 4, I added a little bit to the “choosing a lens” section and moved these notes down here (I didn’t write for very long this day). Draft 5 happened after a week away from writing, and I re-wrote the intro, retitled the post, and deleted some more stuff. Draft 6 – or, the penultimate draft – brought more fine tuning, adding in links, and the sense that even though I could keep tinkering, this is basically good enough. Which brings us here, to the last pass and final draft]