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Why Your Past Won't Help Your Present

Presenter:

School of Life

Time:

3:23

Summary

Part of the pain of growing older is that we can start to see how much, at certain points, we misunderstood ourselves, what the costs of missing self-knowledge were and how beautiful it could be if we could just build ourselves a time machine and go back and correct all our mistakes.

Transcript

Part of the pain of growing older is that we can start to see how much at certain points, we misunderstood ourselves what the costs of missing self knowledge were, and how beautiful it could be. If we could just build ourselves a time machine and go back and correct all our mistakes. It's because at the age of seven, we had no idea about standing up to an adult that we let ourselves get trampled upon by a parent, and then grew up as a target for bullies for much of our lives.


It's because at 17, we were so uncertain about our value, that there was no way we could seduce someone we liked and wasted what might have been some of our most promising years in loneliness and self hatred. It's because at 30, we couldn't understand how our romantic tastes had been formed by our family histories that we embarked on an incautious relationship that spoiled multiple lives. The better responses, when we do finally achieve them are so simple as

to be almost insulting.

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