We cannot fail to meet the same problems as did our forefathers, and learning their answers may help us to act upon them as intelligently as they did, and may even, perhaps, teach us to avoid making the same mistakes. —Anne Fremantle—
As youth, we are impatient and don’t always believe in the values of elders’ experience. A few mistakes, however, and most of us will acknowledge
that we can learn something from the wisdom of the past. As parents, we want to protect our children from suffering the same pain we have gone through. We may have forgotten that some risks are healthy. Fear teaches only more fear. We must experience some failure and some pain if we are to grow and learn. The balance between safety and exploration isn’t easy to strike, but everyone needs to find it. If we listen to the stillness within, we’ll discover what’s right for us to do—when to hang on and when to let go. We will be able to trust ourselves in both caution and bravery, and we will learn from history all it can teach us. The choices in our lives are ours to make. If I am patient, I can understand and use the experience of others.