> It's easy to feel like, "at ${year - 1} I was such an idiot, glad that's over now." You'd be surprised how many years in a row you can feel that way before th

> It's easy to feel like, "at ${year - 1} I was such an idiot, glad that's over now." You'd be surprised how many years in a row you can feel that way before the meta realization sinks in. I'd frame it a little bit differently: "Between last year and now, I grew.". I've found that the best way to avoid feeling like an idiot is to keep an open mind and don't consider others as idiots. For example, I was bullied when I was younger. It took me a long time to change my attitude when meeting new people from defensive to barely neutral. And I have still progress to make here. I still have a hard time understanding my feelings and those of other people. But each year, I make some progress. I'm a bit less stupid, a bit more sensitive, people are a bit more happy to be around me. As you said too, accepting that there are some things that you just don't get is important. It's going from a one dimensional scale (that thing is either better or worse than what I'm doing) to a multi dimensional one (I don't understand why that person is doing that thing but it's their life).