Getting older means recognizing your younger self in people you once would have judged harshly.

Time changes who you can recognize. The reckless, the naive, the person making an obvious mistake with total confidence: at twenty they looked foolish, and later you can see yourself in them clearly, because you were there and you did not know either. That recognition tends to arrive alongside memories you would rather not revisit.

When you feel contempt rising for someone doing something obviously unwise, ask whether you have ever been in that position, even in a different form. The answer usually softens the judgment without making the behavior right. And it makes you far more useful to them, since people rarely take advice from someone who is looking down.