You cannot drink from a poisoned well just because you remember when the water was clean.

CREATIVITY

WHAT THIS MEANS

Remembering what something used to be is not a reason to keep taking it in as it is now. People stay in relationships, jobs, and communities on the strength of an earlier version, drinking from something that has changed, because the memory feels like evidence about the present.

Judge the thing by what it is now rather than by its best period. Ask what the last six months have actually been like. Fondness for the past is real, and it is not a reason to keep drinking.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Which relationship are you judging by how good it used to be?

MORE IN PARADOX, METAPHOR & FOOD FOR THOUGHT

Free, with nothing to buy inside it.