If you are not embarrassed by your past self, you have probably not grown up yet. – from Excellent Advice for Living
While I’d like to think most of us are true to who we are and act well in most situations, the reality is that we’re always learning and growing, and we will make mistakes. If we don’t find some of them embarrassing in our current world, we likely haven’t grown much.
This isn’t being embarrassed by everything, but by some things. I would think many of us make mistakes, say things, do things, treat others poorly in the moment and we wish we hadn’t.
I think a healthy part of life (or family or community, or organization or country or whatever) is making some mistakes, growing and learning not to do the same thing, or a worse thing. Becoming a better person is growing up and that should mean reflection on the past, with some embarrassment over how the past played out.
At the same time, this doesn’t mean that you hold your past self to a higher standard. I recognize that it’s unlikely in many cases that I should have known/done/acted/said something better. I’m just embarrassed now.
Examples for me include how I treated many girls/women, with not enough respect and with my own selfish goals of sex in mind. Poorly treating some coworkers that didn’t know as much as I did, with arrogance or derision. Certainly plenty of times I was upset with my children for what I now see were not good reasons.
I’m mostly happy with who I’ve been, but I’m also embarrassed by some of my actions.
I’ve been posting New Words on Fridays from a book I was reading, however, a friend thought they were a little depressing. They should be as they are obscure sorrows. I like them because they make me think.
To counter-balance those, I’m adding in thoughts on advice, mostly from Kevin Kelley’s book. You can read all these posts under the advice tag.