Looking backwards, to see forward
... you can only connect the dots by looking backwards.
31st March 2021
Words: Ben Seymour
Photos: Ben Seymour
Looking backwards
Did you ever try to write the story of your life?
If you haven't got around to it yet, it's a pretty complex and fascinating notion.
Which bits do you focus on? Which pictures do you want to conjure up. In writing the story of my past, to what extent am I also influencing my sense of self, my current perspectives, and also perhaps my future.
The pictures we choose to remember
To what extent do they shape who we feel we are
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” : Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement speech 2005
Applying this approach to each facet of your life, can give similarly valuable perspectives - I recently looked back at my person history in computing, starting from age 9 in primary school, and it make it seemingly clear that this was almost inevitable, though to me I cannot say it seemed that way at the time.