Life must be lived forward but can only be understood backward. Such an interesting quote, and while it pertains to old age I see evidence of it in my own life already. We are truly the sum of all of our experiences. The choices we make and the lives we create for ourselves have everything to do with where and what we came from. Even the choices that we make to distance ourselves from our past are a part of that continuum. As we get older it becomes easier to look back and see how we got here, to see our choices as the reactions that they usually are. Living forward successfully entails a certain understanding and acceptance of where we have been and a willingness to embrace possibility without fear. As funny as it seems I am braver now that I am older than I ever was in my twenties, I was so busy doing and surviving and trying not to fail and that time was gone before I knew it. Now I am still doing but I know I will survive. I know that failure doesn't kill you, it stings for a while but you recover. I live forward and look forward to what comes next. I have a better understanding of who I am and who I want to be. I can look at where I have been and where I came from and for what its worth know that it helped to shape me. I have both let go and embraced the things that once upon a time caused so much pain. Its the understanding of one's own life backward that gives us the courage to live forward.