On Reading Your Own Life

We read other people's stories with patience and generosity, and our own with a prosecutor's eye. We remember our failures in high definition and our progress in soft focus.

A fairer reading would ask what the last year actually taught rather than merely what it failed to deliver. It would notice the skills quietly acquired, the relationships kept, the disasters survived.

You are the only person with full access to your own archive. Read it with the fairness you would extend to a stranger.