Reflection
Ciao Bellissimi,
Today I take introspective finger to thoughtful keyboard to write to you about reflection.
I was talking to my son today and he is at that ripe old age of 25. He is in college after having gone out after high school and lived a bit. He worked and studied. He played in bands. In short, he lived. This delayed his entrance into college but the lessons he learned were invaluable and instilled in him the burning desire to learn a skill and create a great life.
He took a slightly harder road but in the end, he is where he wants to be.
But at the ripe old age of 25 he has started looking back. For some reason I thought only older people did that but apparently this is not true. Once you have a “back” to look back on, I guess you start looking.
In any case, he told me that his journey to the college he wanted to attend was long and hard but he had made it.
It was long and it was hard. He worked in retail for a lot of the time that he was attending community college and it was rough. There were a lot of early mornings, thankless work schedules and late study nights.
But he did it and now has something to look back on with pride.
And I am supremely proud of him.
My other son is following in his footsteps and has made the same choice. They are both smart and self aware people who will be very successful at whatever they choose to pursue.
That said, looking back at various times in our lives is a very good and valuable thing. It is a way to tot up the good things we did and learn from the bad.
In the last two years, I have had several surgeries, including a hip replacement that went wrong and had to be replaced. I had oral surgeries and most recently a skin cancer surgery to remove a bunch of skin from my nose. On top of that my mom died after an agonizing bout with cancer that left us all devastated and hurting.
Still I can look back now and give myself a back pat and say “Good for not throwing yourself under the wheels of the First Street Trolley.”
We all have times that try us mightily. We hope we have done well with that we had during those times and in looking back we must be generous with ourselves.
Then we can start to look forward again without trepidation.
A few years ago I wrote a blog post called Vistas; Go to the Mountain. I still love that post because it is about reflection but also about making your future. I really believe that you can’t do one without the other. Have a look at that post. I think you will like it.
Meanwhile Summer is coming and with it, another opportunity to go to a strange and exciting place, meet some new people and immerse yourself in some new cultures.
I will be heading over to Italy once again and seeing places like Matera in Basilicata and of course I will spend more time in Rome and Florence as well as Santa Domenica Talao.
It will be wonderful and filled with beautiful things to see. Please stay tuned as I will be blogging my heart out from there. If you happen to be in Southern Italy you might run into me.
Enjoy your reflections and don’t be hard on yourself. At any given time you were doing the best you could with what you had. And kudos for making it through.
XO Chris
The post Reflection; When it’s Good to Look Back appeared first on Chasing La Bella Vita.