Maybe what is behind us makes more clear what is ahead

Just thinking about where we may be going or where we may have been can be challenging. I remember the advice given a new member of a ward who reported having not liked the prior ward, where he had been, and had a list of reasons why that was the case. The advice was that given that perspective then he probably wouldn't like this new ward. That is interesting advice. Maybe "liking" something is more about what you have going on in your own head that what is going on outside your head. That said I suspect where ever we are going may be a really great place since right now it is clear that where we have been has been a really great experience. I just wondered about the phrase......"If you don't like where you were you won't like where your going", so I typed them into Google just to see what might pop up? Well I got three book titles and found that very interesting. Crime and Punishment - by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Chronicles of Narnia- by Clive Staples Lewis, Picture of Dorian Gray- by Oscar Wilde. I have read all of these over the years. The Picture of Dorian Gray may of all of them be the one that clearly shows the differences between looking back and looking forward and it's effect on us. The portrait of Dorian Gray was a look at what he had become but he was a picture of what he had once been. Then of course Dorian Gray's life was one of excess and he needed a way to avoid the consequences. For one who can see where he has been as having been exciting and valuable it means that no consequences need to be avoided. A pure heart hides nothing. Dorian Gray's life would have left him looking different from what he once was and from what the portrait revealed him to be had he moved forward, taking a step at a time, doing his best, valuing where he had been.