I have just finished an excellent online course called "The Brief History of Humankind"[1]. It was really an eye opener for me. I always loved history, but all the arguments people made about why we need to study it never really resonated with me. The stuff about "not repeating the same mistakes", "not re-inventing the wheel", "learning from the past" just never made much sense to me. The real reason to study history, as it was brilliantly presented in the course, is not to learn from the past, but to get liberated from it. We study the past to learn about our present. How did we get here? Why are we here? Often, things we accept as "natural" or permanent, or "optimal" are just a result of decisions and events that occurred long ago in very different context.
This post is an excellent reminder that sometimes we need to do the same on the personal level. We need to look back at our past in order to understand our present and decide about our future.