Beating ourselves up after making a blunder doesn’t mean that we actually know better than what we just did — nor does this kind of suffering lead to greater command or better decisions the next time around. Self-punishing acts prove only one thing: Something in us would rather suffer over what happened in the past than be present to those parts of us that erred in the first place. Real self-command dawns within us as we realize that reliving the past is powerless to change a present misunderstanding; it comes from the light of our new knowledge that having the courage to drop the level of self that keeps wronging us and others is far more important than being seen as right. This same realization also grants us the courage to start life over — again and again.