Every mountain climbed or valley descended, every obstacle, pain, broken heart, and happiness you have encountered in your life is a dot connected by your personal history. Even if you have not connected it, if you have not assumed responsibility for it, or if those dots are invisible to your awareness, they connect. And consciously connecting those dots is part of coming to terms with who you are fundamentally. I will go further; you cannot assume accountability for your life until you have connected those dots. It has to be “somewhat” clear to your awareness what kind of monster you are and what you are capable of doing. We are messy creatures; we are capable of wonderful moments, and almost in the same breath, horrendous deeds. There is no depth to our reality and unless we bring to the surface of our awareness those dots that make up the picture of who we are, we are lost in the maze of our beingness. Take for example when you have done something reprehensible to a dear friend, you may recognize that you wronged them and you have asked for forgiveness; but unless you truly know what button was pressed for you to act despicably and recognize that it was You who did the deed, most likely you will repeat it. Even if you asked for forgiveness and felt whole-heartedly sorry, if you have not connected the dots that created that momentous event with your personal history and you have not grown by its appearance in your life, then it is like it has never happened. You see, in life sometimes you win and sometimes you learn, and if you do not learn then you lose precipitously.