Retrospect

Retrospect

Hindsight is unfortunately 20/20 with me.  There are things that keep me up because of the actions I did when I was younger which I know deem as mistakes.  Those are the things that make me cringe and make me sigh.  It’s never good with me.  Because in retrospect, the memories which keep me up at night are also those which I obsess over.  And that isn’t good to obsess over the things which I cannot change.  I have to start focusing on the things I can change.

And what are those things?  My motivations?  My inspirations?  My future actions on what I deem as possible future mistakes are certainly among that list.  Of course, I want to also focus on what I can do to improve myself to be a better person.  And that’s subjective.  Better is subjective.  I want to be better at what I do and who I am, and the only way to compare the new me is with the old me.  And that, of course, is always on the side of the viewer.  Perspective, that is.  The perspective on who I could be as a better person stems on the current me in the retrospect of the person I was so I can become someone I can deem as better.

The New Year just happened ‘bout a week ago.  The whole “New Year, New Me” cliché is so overdone that I am sick of it.  Resolutions are anything but, and they are cast off to the way-side all too easily.  And these resolutions are simply first steps to solving a greater problem.   I firmly believe that identifying that there is something wrong is the first step to solving the problem.  In identifying that there is a problem with yourself, that is the first step to solving it.

I want to be better, and no amount of resolutions or New Year’s will do a thing.  If I want to start being better, I need to start now.  Not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, and not next New Year.  I need to fix starting now, and not on the time that is dictated to me as “most convenient.”  Which means if I want to start thinking about changing myself now, I need the retrospect in order to identify the problems which are causing me to be someone I don’t want to be.

It’s a lot like writing, in a sense.  I write, and I write, and I write.  And sometimes the words are great, and sometimes the words are horrible.  But in the act of writing I can create something beautiful and flawed and organic and in the machinations upon the page something happens.  It is only in looking back upon what I wrote that I can decipher the mess I made, and decide whether or not the mess I made was a mess or something more coherent.

Editing is a bit like retrospect, I suppose.  If I want to make my written work better I need to look back and fix the problems I see.  And that takes time and effort that won’t happen tomorrow or the next day or the next day.  It’s something I need to start now, so I start becoming someone better than I am today.

Next post won’t be musings from a mad mind, I promise.