We Need History

When we face temptations or terrors or confusion, it is helpful to have had a history lesson related to the subject, so that we have clues about possible answers, possible strategies, and possible outcomes in the situations we’re in.

We can learn from others’ history what happened when they had certain answers, and either use their strategies, or avoid them at all costs. It is useful to have faced a problem earlier in our own lives, too. We should have learned something from the previous encounter, that advises us regarding repetition of a successful answer, or seeking a different answer that might work better than the failure did.

In short, every time we face a difficulty, it may be an educational or preparational environment in which we will learn a lesson that we will need to have learned when a greater event confronts us, with more costly or valuable results in it.

It may be one of the most difficult and valuable decisions you ever make to decide that you will look at every problem you encounter as if it is a course you have paid a tuition to study, and then dig in to it to extract from it all the information and preparation you can find.