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Respect The Past, But Be Open To The Future
Focusing on the Daily Stoic Meditation for August 25 — Respect The Past, But Be Open To The Future, as outlined by Ryan Holiday in the bestseller 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance and the Art Of Living.
“Won’t you be walking in your predecessors’ footsteps? I surely will use the older path, but if I find a shorter and smoother way, I’ll blaze a trail there. The ones who pioneered these paths aren’t our masters, but our guides. Truth stands open to everyone, it hasn’t been monopolized.”
— SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 33.11
On the past
You must respect and learn from the past.
You cannot erase it — and so there is no use in focusing negatively on it. Whatever mistakes or errors you made in the past are fixed, and there is no use getting consumed by anxiety.
You cannot be furious about it — the past is the past, you cannot do anything now.
What you can do, however, is respect and learn from the past.
Learn from the past
Think of all of those who walked before you — they dealt with the same struggles, fought the same battles and overcome the same obstacles…
