Learning from embarrassment and finding value in every moment
When looking back over your life, have there ever been moments when you reflect on something you once believed and you immediately experience a degree of disdain over the fact that you actually believed it, even to the brink of embarrassment?
If so, you’re not alone.
Just the other day I read a note a friend of mine left on his Facebook wall about a doctrinal idea he once held to. He briefly outlined the idea and why he no longer holds to it, and ended by expressing how upset he was at himself for actually believing it in the first place.
I get it.
In fact, from time to time when I reflect on certain moments in my life, moments that include certain theological ideas I embraced and/or ways I expressed those ideas, I too experience varying degrees of embarrassment. In fact, I often shake my head and say to myself, “I can’t believe I actually believed that,” or “I can’t believe I acted that way.”
I think we can all relate to that to one degree or another.
And, if I were completely honest, as embarrassing as those moments may be to me now, I also wouldn’t hit the delete button and remove those episodes from my life either.
Why? Because it’s a part of growing up.
The way we processed ideas, coupled with our level of maturity at the time and the influences that shaped us, all contributed to who we were. As odd as some of the things we believed and did may be to us now, they are also an important part of who we have become.
If I have learned anything at all about living, it is this.
Life isn’t a static, unchanging flat-line. It is deeply rooted in change and growth.
Knowledge and understanding should always be in a constant state of movement. And, everything we’ve learned should be added to who we are.
Learning isn’t a once in a lifetime episode, but a play that never ends.
Life accumulates. Knowledge accumulates. Everything we read, taste, touch, smell, and hear adds to what came before. In this scheme, everything matters and nothing should be seen as stupid and without value. If it were not for those embarrassing moments, we wouldn’t have turned into the people we are today.
So, take it easy on yourself.
Take pride in the fact that you are self-aware enough to see those not-so-great moments in life and learn something positive from them.
I never quite understand when someone says of another person after having not seen them for years, “you haven’t changed a bit.” I don’t want that to be said of me.
Life changes us.
And, to say that all of the things I’ve experienced in life have left me to be the same person, means I haven’t grown at all; that I haven’t learned to appreciate the value and worth that every moment can add to my life’s journey.
So, live in the moments and learn to see value in everything we experience, even the deeply embarrassing episodes.
And, when you do, you’ll begin to see life the way it was meant to be seen.
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