It means that you are essentially a historian. You look at the past to figure out things, that way people can lake the future better.
The appropriate pronoun that would complete the given sentence above is "me". The complete sentence would be: Mom taught Carrie and me to drive last summer. Why "me" and not "I". The missing pronoun is a direct object. It is the receiver of the action along with "Carrie". The pronoun "I" is a subject pronoun whereas, the pronoun "me" is a object pronoun.
Lead to confusion or misunderstanding
The first option is indirect characterization.