Over lunch, a good friend shared this nugget of wisdom with me.
“Do you know why cars have a huge front windscreen, decent-sized windows, and a small rearview mirror?” he asked.
“In life, we need to focus on the road ahead, and that is why the front windscreen is so big – it indicates we should pay the most attention to our future. The side windows represent our present, which we should check from time to time for blind spots and obstacles as we navigate life,” he explained.
“The rearview mirror shows us a view of what’s past,” he said. “It is small because it is a reminder that we should focus the least energy on our memories and nostalgia. It is nice to occasionally glance at the road we have traveled, but you can’t move forward while you’re keeping your eyes on the rearview mirror.”
When the road ahead is fraught with challenges, we tend to look into the rearview mirror and reminisce about the good old days, even though it does nothing to help our journey ahead. It is a reminder to focus all our attention on the front windscreen and the road ahead because objects in the rearview mirror always look cooler than they are.