Check the rearview for a second. Stare at it and you’ll wreck the windshield view.

Looking back is genuinely useful in short glances. It tells you what happened, what you would do differently, who was behind you. Held too long it stops being information and becomes a place you live, and while you are there the thing coming toward you goes unwatched. The mirror was never meant to be the main view.

Give the past a scheduled glance rather than an open invitation. Ask what the one lesson was, write it somewhere, then put your eyes back on the coming week. The lesson keeps and the staring does not help.