Greetings everyone and I’m Scott Savoy welcoming you to the first weekend of March.
Spring is almost here and I can actually smell it!
Today, I am pleased to share our president’s weekly editorial with you and for today, Donna J. Jodhan laments on how so many of us tend to forget our past.
This is a very sobering editorial and I invite you now to read and write to Donna at donnajodhan@sterlingcreations.ca.
Enjoy your weekend.
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What Happens When We Forget Our Past?
When we need help, we reach out—and more often than not, helping hands reach back. They guide, advise, and support us through moments when the ground feels unsteady. Someone opens a door. Someone makes a call. Someone believes in us when we’re not quite ready to believe in ourselves.
But what happens after we get on our feet?
What happens when success arrives, when stability replaces struggle, and when the climb is finally over—yet the memory of the climb quietly fades?
Too often, the answer is uncomfortable. The gratitude that once felt urgent becomes optional. The names and faces that mattered during the ascent blur into the background. And the simple act of returning the favor—of reaching down as others once reached up—gets postponed, rationalized, or forgotten entirely.
This forgetting leaves a mark. It creates bad feelings, bad blood, and silent reckonings. The person who once gave freely begins to hesitate. They make a private commitment: Next time, I’ll be less helpful. Not out of bitterness, but out of self-protection. Generosity, after all, is hardest to sustain when it goes unrecognized.
Why does this happen?
Part of it is human nature. Success has a way of rewriting our personal history. Once we reach the top of the ladder, it’s tempting to believe we climbed it alone. Hard work becomes the headline; luck, timing, and help become footnotes—if they’re mentioned at all. We tell ourselves stories where independence replaces interdependence, where achievement feels cleaner without acknowledging the hands that steadied us.
There’s also fear. Gratitude implies obligation, and obligation can feel like a threat to hard-won autonomy. Some worry that acknowledging help diminishes their merit, as if saying “I didn’t do this alone” somehow cheapens the victory. But that belief
misunderstands strength. Real strength isn’t solitary. It’s relational.
Forgetting our past doesn’t just damage relationships—it erodes the culture around us. When success becomes a closed loop, fewer people are willing to invest in others. Mentorship dries up. Trust thins out. Communities become ladders no one wants to hold steady anymore.
Remembering, on the other hand, is a radical act.
It costs little to send a thank-you. It costs some time to mentor, to recommend, to show up. But the return is enormous. Remembering keeps generosity alive. It reminds us that progress is rarely a solo act and that none of us truly rises unless someone else believes we can.
Looking down from the top of the ladder shouldn’t make us forget how we got there. It should remind us why it matters to reach back.
Because one day, someone else will be climbing—and whether they make it may depend on whether we remember our past well enough to be part of their future.
I’d like to leave you with this for your consideration.
Ungrateful – the cleanest fit: success without acknowledgment of who helped.
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Callous – emotionally hardened; sees the struggle and feels nothing.
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Self-serving – success framed entirely as their own doing.
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Amnesic (morally) – figurative, but powerful: chooses to forget the help received.
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Aloof – distant and detached from those still climbing.
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Disdainful – looks down with contempt rather than empathy.
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Hypocritical – condemns or ignores the struggle they once shared.
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Opportunistic – used help to rise, then discarded the helper.
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Climber’s blindness (phrase) – success that erases memory of the climb.
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Selective gratitude (phrase) – thankful only when it’s convenient.
Image = A white ladder extends vertically from the bottom of the image toward the top right, reaching just beneath a black ceiling lamp that casts a focused beam of light downward, illuminating the upper part of the ladder. The background fades from a deep blue at the top to a light gradient at the bottom, creating a minimalistic and surreal atmosphere.
To learn more about me as an award winning sight loss coach and advocate visit www.donnajodhan.com
