The Rearview Mirror

Janus, the two-headed god of the Romans, had the advantage over us. His goal was to look back and reflect on the past as well as to look forward and anticipate the future. Reflect is an interesting word, isn’t it? We use it to mean think deeply on or carefully about. We also use it to mean we see an image of ourselves. Very appropriate dualism for this time of year.

So many of us get blinders so we are stuck in looking back, looking in the rearview mirror, not even having a peripheral view. Or we only look forward and live in hope and anticipation of the future without learning from our past. Not a great stance either, but it is more positive.

If you’re in the former camp, try to get out of the backward looking. It is so often filled with regrets and second-guessing. If only I had . . . Why didn’t I . . . Now she’ll never . . .

See how negative and depressing that stance can be?

A Facebook meme caught my eye a couple of years ago. “There’s a reason why the rearview mirror is so small and the windshield is so big. Because where you’re headed is more important than where you’ve been.”

Doesn’t that just say it all? Of course we need to consider where we’ve been, but it should not dominate who we are or what we are thinking. Forward looking most of the time will get us to our destination more quickly than having our eyes looking back constantly.

Look back enough to keep oriented. Look back enough to recognize the influence from where you’ve been. But keep on truckin’. Momentum!

Can’t you see this as a theme/subtheme in a book? One partner is forward looking at all times. There is no past, in that person’s view. The past is over and done. No sense thinking about it to either reflect, revel, or regret.

Contrast that person with shis partner who can’t shake the past, who looks backward more than forward. “Living in the rearview mirror,” the past, is as devastating as one who won’t acknowledge the past. Imagine the conflicts you could write!

And don’t we learn lessons from our characters, as we write them, that apply to us, too? If you enjoyed this post, please copy/paste the messages below. Thank you!

Facebook: Do you live your life staring at the Rearview Mirror or do you look through the Windshield to what’s coming? http://bit.ly/2D77QBi

Twitter: #Writers can create characters who contrast by using their world view as Rearview Mirror or Windshield people. http://bit.ly/2D77QBi

Old Soul for the New Year

The Party’s Over, It’s Time to Call It a Day… One year ends. A new year begins.

The New Year is a special gateway, I believe. It’s a magical, mystical time for me. Maybe that’s what made me take that Internet quiz, “How Old is Your Soul?” What is on the horizon? What magic awaits? What challenges will I confront? This year will be like no other ever has been. What’s not to like about that?

The notion of old souls pulls at me. Since I believe in reincarnation, the idea that one comes back and back to resolve issues with individuals or character traits appeals. I get another shot (or six) at trying to improve myself. One gets to be an old soul, not by returning so much, but by working out those issues so that each lifetime has fewer areas in need of resolution.

When someone labels me an old soul, it’s supposed to be a compliment. A recognition that I am higher-evolved than many of their acquaintance. That I have learned many of life’s lessons.

The fact that I am again corporeal, am living another life after having lived many others, is evidence that I haven’t learned all I need to know to be the highest evolved. I am here to work out character flaws that keep me from the highest level. I know that two of mine are my judgmental nature that is directly tied to how difficult it is for me to forgive grievances.

Knowing that about myself is better than not knowing, but I fear I will leave this existence still

bearing the onus of those flaws. (See how judgmental I am?) I think I am still a toddler (in developmental terms) in mastering those two areas. Sigh. I think it will take me a few more lifetimes to figure out how to let go of them.

So much as I like the label of old soul, I have to say it bugs me to be so labeled. The implication is the one telling you that is an old soul, too, recognizing a comrade. It takes one to know one? Is that hubris or what?

While I do feel I have an awareness of what I need to work on, I don’t feel like an old soul so much as a mature adult who assesses what lies ahead and sets about to do it. I know, because I am actually old, that my soul will not accomplish its tasks in this body. I am too far from achieving the goal and seem unable to make myself do what I know needs to be done.

Sigh. I’ll be back! See you next life.