How can reflecting on your past affect your future?

One of the advantages of growing older is that you have more experience to base your decisions on. I see this most clearly in my teaching. The longer I teach, the more patient I am with students. In the past, for example, when a student was overtly disrespectful to me, I took it personally, and I could feel the anger welling up inside. "How dare this kid" my thoughts might begin. "Doesn't this kid know better?" they might continue. Experience has taught me, though, that the majority of the time students do something that I regard as disrespectful, it's probably not intended that way but is rather an unconscious way to save face with his peers. Instead of treating it as a personal affront and a challenge to my authority as a teacher, I began looking at such incidents as teaching opportunities.