Evaluate

By:  Ada Z.       

        Have you ever had an awkward moment with someone and after you've escaped that moment you think about it incessantly?  Well, I have, and some of those moments were over 20 years ago.   

        To this day, I will randomly think of a high school memory where I said something stupid.  I will replay a moment over and over and think about how I could have done it differently.  I will wonder if that person ever thinks of that moment too.  Of course, if I were to mention it to them now they would have no idea what I'm talking about and they probably never gave it a second thought.  

        It's one thing to overthink things and obsess, however, it's another thing to evaluate.  Obsessing over something that has already happened is truly pointless.  You don't get to go back to that time and have a do-over.  What's done is done.  What you can do is go back and evaluate that moment.  

        After Lisa and I started our podcast, we would listen to our episodes and obsess over what we should have said or how we should have said it differently.  I began to realize that this was so damaging to us and our confidence because there was nothing we could do about it.  There is always the option to delete an episode but nothing we said was that detrimental and if we had forgotten to mention something, no one would know that except for us.  Instead of obsessing over past episodes, we should have been evaluating them.  How could we do these sorts of episodes differently?  How can we prepare better so we don't leave something out?  What should we do to improve our speaking abilities?  

        Obsessing over the past is unproductive.  Evaluating your past, on the other hand, is necessary.  What you can't change, you can always learn from.  

                                                                    My high school ID card.  Junior Year.