The Past -- without there is no future

This morning I was reading Rich Harwood's blog, which always has in-depth insights to community building coming from a personal perspective. He is writing about Yom Kippur, a time to look back and reflect on how you are doing in your individual quest.

Rich linked his thoughts about the individual's look back with a community looking back. He was talking about the importance of forgiving yourself and not wallowing in the misery of memory of things gone wrong and on being blinded by the notion that things were always better -- then. His message is an important one because it is to make choices and make judgments about the past and use those choices and judgments to move forward into the future.

When I think of community building from a neighborhood, from a city, from a company or a college, I know that if we all can learn from but then let go of our past, we can more efficiently and quickly build our future.