Teachable moments
A life lived can be filled with lessons
By Jim LaJoie, co-publisher, contributor
There is a possibly apocryphal quote attributed to Satchel Paige, the famous Negro and Major League baseball player: “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Those have been words I have mostly lived by.
I have always been one who looked ahead, maybe to a fault. Looking ahead is good for planning, being prepared, accomplishing things, but as I have gotten older, I see more value in looking back over the course of my life. That may be, although a sobering thought, that there are more years behind me than in front. Like everyone, when I look back there are regrets. Instead of wallowing in self-recriminations and “what ifs” I have tried to learn lessons from those memories that make me wince.
A life lived can be filled with teachable moments.
For instance, I had a small group of very good friends in college. Shortly after graduation, I got angry at them over some perceived slight and stopped talking to them. We never reconnected. When I look back, I don’t have even a vague, gauzy memory of what I was angry about. Just that I was angry. If the intervening years have completely eroded my memory as to why I was angry, then obviously the reason was inconsequential. Certainly not important enough to have lost friendships. My older me readily acknowledges that. I wish the younger me could have reached the same conclusion. I don’t have a wide range of friends, but those I do I value greatly now. That is a learned behavior on my part.
When I was younger there was a young woman I very much cared for. We had an on-again, off-again relationship. It was almost always me pushing the off button. We eventually parted ways. I don’t regret the relationship ending, I am now married to someone I truly see as my soulmate but wish I had been more open about my feelings to this woman. I believe she deserved to know, and it would have helped me be more open about my feelings a lot earlier in my life than was the case. I still struggle with being more open about my feelings with those close to me. It is very easy for me to be open to my wife. I have learned, however, to be better at telling others. That is a lesson I have learned from examining moments of my past life.
There is a job I took early in my career that I should never have taken. In interviewing for the job, all sorts of bells went off in my head, warning flags waving wildly in front of me. I was blinded by the financial offer, substantially more than what I was making at the time. I took the job. Within days of my first week on the job I realized I had made a mistake. I vowed to stay in the job for exactly one year, which I did, before resigning. It was a very long year. I throw myself into my work. Holding a job I hated and enduring it for a year affected all aspects of my life. I learned many lessons from this: trust my instincts, no job is worth the money if it makes you miserable and try to compartmentalize your work and life. The last I am still working on. However, the first two lessons have taken hold and become an abiding part of who I am.
There are current friends I wish I had spent more time with over the years. Yes, life gets in the way. That is the excuse we all tell ourselves. Friends are part of your life, and you should give time to them. I have learned that you can’t get that time back, so make sure you create moments now, if you can.
Men are often guilty of having their self-worth measured by what their job is or was. I was guilty of that. I had always placed far more emphasis on work than I should have. I had often been obsessed with work-related challenges or issues. I had been guilty of spending time lying awake at night with those obsessions. The cost of that obsession was enjoying the moment I was in, which nearly always had much to appreciate. I have learned that lesson, admittedly far later than I should have.
Each of these regrets, and many more, have become teachable moments for me. Maybe this old guy required more time to learn life’s lessons than others, but I feel fortunate that those lessons were eventually learned. A life lived can be filled with teachable moments. The trick is to look back occasionally, take a sober look at what happened, and find the kernel of truth waiting there to be learned.
Well said, Jim. Hindsight is 20-20. That's why it's worth looking back without regret.
Good one Jim. It is good to look back occasionally. If only everyone learned from their past mistakes.