From Here On… – Sunday, October 14, 1956
There are always times of looking back in the living of a lifetime. No matter What decisions we make or fail to make, we are likely to look back and wonder what would have happened if we had done differently. Being human, as all of us are, we make mistakes.
To some extent, at least, most of us at times feel our way along without the full facts before us, and perhaps there is almost no day that we couldn’t look back upon and wish to improve. There is perhaps almost no day that we couldn’t wish we hadn’t said some things we have said that we hadn’t thought some things we have thought, or that we had done some things better than we did.
Life is in part a process of repentance. In a sense, progress itself is a process of repentance; and the person who thinks he doesn’t make mistakes is usually deceiving himself. Individually and collectively, there is no doubt we make many mistakes.
We misjudge other men; we misjudge situations; often even we misjudge ourselves—and our problems and perplexities, our debts and difficulties, our regrets and some of our sorrows and uncertainties are part of the price we pay.
The judgment to recognize and the bigness to admit a mistake are among the more desirable qualities of character; for the future will be more as we would want it to be if we have the judgment and honesty to admit our mistakes and repent and improve.
And the sooner we repent, the sooner we pay, the sooner we improve, the lighter is the compounding of the penalties. It is as Emerson observed: “Always pay, for first or last you must pay every debt.”1 And having admitted mistakes, having sincerely repented of the past, there remains an earnest incentive to look forward from here, with hope, and with faith for the future.
If there is anything we have reason to regret, from here on is our opportunity, for great is the power of real repentance—which is to turn away from what we should not do and do it no more. *
*Revised
1Ralph Waldo Emerson, Compensation,
October 14, 1956
Broadcast Number 1,417