Just as the sand-dunes, heaped one upon another, hide each the first, so in life the former deeds are quickly hidden by those that follow after.

Whatever you did last is buried soon enough by what comes after it. That is uncomfortable if you are living off an old success and a relief if you are carrying an old mistake, since the covering happens either way. What people hold about you is mostly recent.

If an old failure still feels like your defining fact, notice how little of it survives in anyone else’s memory, and put your effort into the next layer instead. If an old achievement is what you keep mentioning, take that as a prompt to build something newer. Either way the work is in front of you.