THE FORGOTTEN PHOTO IN THE WHITE HOUSE

When he wrote, "Life is what happens to us while we're making other plans," he might have added, "Morning mirrors can lie to us about this, but most cameras won't." That the first is true is fiercely proved the more our best plans fall apart. That the second is true happens the unexpected day we find an old photo of the young us.

Thrust into a chaotic universe, we need desperately to believe there are rational ways at our disposal by which to travel it safely. And yet as we do, we hardly notice how youth and life itself has slipped away from us.

At first we smile at the long-ago picture, maybe even laugh as we pass it around the family table. But later when we're alone, we feel the self-conscious urge to take a second look. Good lord! The eyes so bright, the skin so taut, the hair so blond, the smile so sure. Living here day by day, I forgot that day. Could that me really have been me?

The answer is: Yes and No.

Yes, what we were then is inescapably at the core of who we are now. No, however, because the apple's core is only found after peeling the skin. It's the peeling -- the introspection -- that most of us defer. Perhaps even deny. After all, that's what therapists do. For others. Me, I haven't got time, because I've only got now!

Wrong answer.

There's a forgotten photo in every White House. However, leaders roiled in the dynamics of now, can so easily lose touch with the who that brought them here. From presidents to popes, from ministers to mayors, from father to son, we are each traveling the same chaotic universe. But whatever our respective destinations, there was always a stepping-off point. Can you remember...?

So many forget. So great our loss.