The platform you ‘stand on’ is built from bricks of things you did and did not do. This does not mean that what you went through does not have any impact on you; it does. Everything counts. While you cannot divorce yourself, front the past you have opportunity to create a new past today.
What you do today becomes the past tomorrow. We simultaneously create the past as we create the future. The past we create has a bearing on who we are tomorrow. Each experience we have and create is a brick in the platform we will stand on. We must be careful never think or assume that what we do now is separate from the future.
Take PSY, made worldwide famous by his hit Gangnam Style, as an example. After his hit brought him fame, it emerged that he had said some anti-American stuff in the past. Consider Lance Armstrong who was hailed a hero for many years, only to discover years later that he was not the hero many thought him to be.
The same platform that Lance Armstrong built his platform with unfair and illegal means is that platform on which he destroyed his reputation and career. PSY had to somehow come to account for actions about eight years old.
Never think that what you do now stands alone from everything else that makes you who you are. Also, do not make the mistake to think that it cannot come back in the future, as history that has power to destroy you in some way.
Momentary compromises have a reach greater than most imagine
Your future may just have great influence in it. At the moment not many people, if any, may really care about who you are, but trust me, when your platform gets bigger they will want to know. They will dig about everything about you as far as they can to test your authenticity and character.
When your big break comes the world is not going to judge you according to the platform you stand on at that time but on every brick on your platform. There is danger or blessing in them looking back at who you are based on what bricks you allowed to build your platform with it.
You may not think what you do now does not matter. It may seem like it does not matter now, but if not now it will matter tomorrow. If something is going to matter in the future then we must treat it with utmost importance in the present.
Whether in a personal capacity or as an enterprise, consider your platform and choose carefully the brick you will build it with.
Stuff comes back to bite you… As far as character and credibility is concerned you are standing and will stand on everything you are and everything you have ever done…