One of the blessings, or curses, of publishing your own thoughts in a public forum is the ability to go back and reread these scattered tidbits months or years, or even decades, later. You can almost follow the trail of thoughts, like breadcrumbs back through your evolution of thinking.
I recently had the opportunity to do this, and ran smack dab into a 180 degree turnaround in my way of thinking. Ruh roh.
As a printer who also likes to write, I publish pieces in some industry-related periodicals from time to time. One such piece, written 2.5 short years ago presented me with an example of how much I have grown and changed in some of my business thinking (if you look at things from a positive angle) or how very, very wrong I was in offering up such heartfelt crappy advice to my fellow printers (if you look at things from a negative angle).
How should one react when confronted with a blatant example of wrong-headedness? I guess we’ve all been there, otherwise no one would have coined the phrases “Hindsight is 20/20” or “If I’d known then what I know now.” Do I owe my readers an errata statement? Do I allow them to snicker behind my back, pointing to me and laughing? Or do I just own it, put on my big girl pants and realize that, with experience often comes a change of mind and thinking?
I haven’t made up my mind yet, and am happy to hear any advice or comments from my regular readers (Mom, that’s you, pay attention!).
Until then, listen to Dave Matthews Band singing about what they never knew, but do now…
