a Series of 10 —when clarity arrives late

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By my count I am 2 blogs away from having written 500 blogs on my two websites. I thought it might be an interesting idea to write these remaining blogs based on the common threads that have woven themselves through the last 498 I have written — and with that said, “a Series of 10” will continue with a blog on reflection.

The poor artist in me craves artistic expression and has led to many things including a tattoo gracing each shoulder; both stylized. One is the sun and the other is the moon. One is to shine and the other is to reflect.

One represents the unabashed brightness of who we can be and the other is the measured brightness of who we want to be — both important, working together in a continuous loop of shining and reflection — growth and development.

The idea of self-reflection is not new, and it doesn’t take long to remember sayings passed down from your parents and their parents — “Learn from your mistakes”, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”, or “Hindsight is 20/20”. You have probably even experienced it firsthand when you finally came up with the perfect comeback three hours after the fact.

Realization after the fact is the catalyst to growth — some of the strongest lessons happen after the fact, when you realized you should have turned left instead of right or realized you were wrong after seeing the situation from a different perspective. All of this is ready to be internalized, analyzed, added to the library of experiences and acknowledged as a lesson learned.

This formula for growth and development leads to shining brighter which, starts the cycle all over again. I see three aspects for reflection and optimizing this growth cycle — 1) develop the bravery and habit to look in the mirror in the first place, 2) suppress your ego when reflecting and with humility, learn from it, and 3) remember what you have learned for the next time.

And with that, as I write this, I finally understand why humility is so important.

I finally realize that humility is more than just a human characteristic of kindness but rather a key component in squelching the ego that gets in the way of learning, growing and shining.

It turns out, one of the reasons I blog is to reflect — and more than ever, I will do it with humility.

iamgpe

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