Hindsight Rx

They say hindsight is 20/20. It isn’t.

I have beaten myself up about things I should have said, actions I should have either taken or avoided. So have you. It’s part of the human condition.

When things don’t turn out the way we want, the normal reaction is either to blame other people, and/or to punish ourselves – usually at around four in the morning.

Well, stop it.

You did the best you could have done. You spoke or acted based on impulse or the perceived alternatives, conscious or sub. Go back in time and that’s still all you’ll have to work with.

I bet you’d end up making the same choice, if not the exact same choice then as close as doesn’t matter.

That’s why I say hindsight isn’t 20/20.

In hindsight, you think about things that might have caused you to hold your tongue or do something differently.

Sure, it’s easy to see the pattern after the dominoes have stopped falling.

Time passes and the consequences play out, by then what was important and what wasn’t is stupidly obvious.

However, when you’re in the moment you don’t realize that you’re about to knock over that first domino. You can’t see what will turn out to matter most, or what was really at stake.

But wait, there’s more.

When the moment passes, when dominoes cascade and the consequences loom up out of nowhere like a corpse in a slasher movie, you’ll be so focused on the situational afterbirth that you won’t remember what it really felt like in the beginning, how limited you thought your options were, or even that you tried your damnedest.

Like I said, hindsight isn’t 20/20.

Hindsight actually has severe astigmatism.