This is the time of year to reflect, to repent, to ask for forgiveness.

But wait. Didn鈥檛 we already do this last year, and the year before, and the year before that?

If we keep repenting year after year, and asking for forgiveness year after year, shouldn鈥檛 we get to a point where we no longer need to?

Shouldn鈥檛 the lessons be internalized so we don鈥檛 repeat the same mistakes?

Said another way, why do we keep messing up?

One reason, I鈥檇 like to suggest, is that we鈥檙e so madly in love with being right.

Being right can hypnotize us and bring out our worst. It feels so good to be right we can forget to do what’s right. In that self-righteous and vulnerable state, it鈥檚 a very small step to lash out at others, even at those we love.

If you think your parent or sibling or child or spouse or friend has wronged you, and you think you鈥檙e 100 percent right, it鈥檚 not that hard or shocking to lose your cool and hurt their feelings in return.

The drug of being right, in other words, can trump even love. It also blinds us to the big picture.

What is the biggest picture of life? In a word, it is death. More specifically, it is those last few minutes before we go.

At that moment, everything somehow comes into focus. The most crucial lessons, the most essential truths, shine most brightly when we ponder the final minutes of someone’s life.

In those final minutes of your mother鈥檚 life, for example, how much will it matter that you were right and she was wrong when you got into that argument five months ago?

We don’t often ponder the final moments of other people’s life– we’re much better at pondering our own. We know the cliches: our lives are precious, we can鈥檛 waste a minute, we must look for meaning, and so on.

As David Brooks has written, do we want to live for our resumes or for our funerals? What do we want people to say about us after we go– that we were great in business or that we were great in life?

But this is always about our聽lives, about聽our听蹿耻苍别谤补濒蝉.

What about the lives and funerals of those around us? There is equal value, I would say, in pondering those other funerals as well. It is other people, after all, who create the lifeblood of our lives: our relationships.

Asking for forgiveness is about relationships. Falling in love is about relationships. Creating partnerships is about relationships. Dealing with family is about relationships. Indeed, everything of real value in our lives revolves around relationships.

Relationships are so essential that when we hurt someone, one of the lessons of the High Holy Days is that not even God can forgive us. It is only the person we hurt.

And why do we hurt people, year after year, Rosh Hashanah after Rosh Hashanah? Maybe one reason is that we鈥檙e so intoxicated by that addictive feeling of being right, of feeling on top, we can’t help ourselves.

It鈥檚 easy to be humble, of course, when we鈥檙e wrong or when we lose; and it鈥檚 a lot harder when we鈥檙e right or when we win. In the stress of our everyday lives, when the need to overcome obstacles and succeed can overtake us, who can think of being humble?

When we seek certainty, who鈥檚 got time for humility?

When we鈥檙e winning an argument, who鈥檚 got time to think of that person who鈥檚 losing? That person we may have hurt?

There is, surely, one time when we do think of that other person: when they are on their death bed.

In those final minutes, it is only the relationship that will matter, not whether we were ever right or wrong. In those final breaths, humility will find us, whether we want it or not.

If we can transport those last moments of life to our lives today, we鈥檒l be more forgiving throughout the year and less likely to hurt others. Instead of the satisfaction of being right, we will nurture the virtue of being humble.

So when we get to Rosh Hashanah, we won’t be thinking of asking for forgiveness but savoring every minute with those we love.

Shana Tova.