A few months ago, when I moved, I purchased a new combination lock for my basement storage locker. I wrote down the three-number sequence on an index card and placed the card in the kitchen drawer where I keep carryout menus.

Oddly enough, as soon as I got this lock, I forgot the combination for the lock I use for my health club locker. It was as if I could only store one sequence of three numbers (1-40) at a time. I ended up buying a lock and key set for the gym and had to get used to working out with the key sliding around in my left shoe.

I have been thinking about memory ever since.

Why is it that some things stick in your head regardless of how often you try to access the information and other bits seem to evaporate? I still remember most of the 5-digit zip codes for the northern suburbs of Chicago because of a summer job I had working in a postal distribution center almost forty years ago. That I often can’t remember where I left keys or my glasses (even when they’re pushed up my forehead like a headband) confounds me.

Being creatures often motivated by approval, it seems that our tendency to remember the name of a song or the admission price for an art museum is linked to having regular contact with someone who would be interested in that factoid.

We like to equip ourselves with information we can share with our compadres. It feels good to be able to correctly recall which sluggers played for a single team over the span of their careers when hanging out with fantasy league friends, or be able to recount to a fellow film aficionado which Woody Allen movies featured Dianne Wiest.

Memories are fickle though, how something in your known universe can be recalled at some times, but not at other times; how something that can’t be recalled one day, emerges, seemingly unsought, weeks later.

I am oddly happy when I can end a phone conversation with a tech or settle my dinner tab with a waitress by invoking the name they mentioned so casually at the beginning of our exchange. I can get despondent over not being able to name actors or politicians I grew up knowing, or the names of a good friend’s children, or the street that has a little known entrance ramp to the expressway, or if that favorite Szechwan restaurant is closed on Mondays, or…

I know there are Sudoku puzzles and brain games and even dietary supplements for improving one’s memory, which are all good, but, when it comes to memory, I feel it’s important to check motives. Do we want to remember something because a slice of information is important to our survival or to the health of a relationship, or are we looking for a measuring stick to declare superior knowledge or to berate ourselves for a shortcoming?

Supposedly, by the time we reach fifty, our ability to recall recently processed information diminishes. Maybe more valuable than writing down a locker combination on an index card, I need to remember to be kinder to myself when my once stellar ability to recall such things has changed.

I often laugh when I feel my locker key sliding around under my thick white socks while I am on the treadmill at the gym. I can remember to smile when a regular companion forgets what kind of wine I like to order at a favorite bistro. It’s not that important. Feeling more compassion for ourselves and for others is what matters.

Forgiving ourselves for forgetting and acknowledging ourselves for remembering what’s truly important is no small thing