Hindsight is always twenty-twenty
– Billy Wilder
Opportunities seem so clear in hindsight; they weren’t when it was the present.
We beat ourselves up when we realize a great opportunity was missed, and it seems like we miss these opportunities often, doesn’t it?
And in hindsight, we do.
Looking back at various offers and chances we’ve had, it does seem like that one thing was a clear winner – how could we not see it so easily?
Looking back, it seems the journey was practically highlighted for us – why have we walked off the path?
Looking back, it simply looks as if we’re just awful decision-makers – are we just purposely self-sabotaging ourselves to avoid opportunity after opportunity?
In hindsight, it certainly feels like it, but in the present, it is never so clear.
In the present we deal with the knowledge we already have and our current status, stress, timetables, thoughts, emotions, restrictions, challenges, worries, peer support (or the opposite), other common or rare factors to decide upon, and an infinite number of other things that bring us to the present decision.
Sometimes we’re right, and sometimes we’re wrong; sometimes we’ve made the right call, and sometimes we haven’t; and sometimes we may have made the appropriate call, even though we ended up missing an amazing opportunity.
Yet we beat ourselves up at those lost chances, while not lifting ourselves up at the right choices we have made. We, unfortunately, focus on what we’ve missed, rather than on what we’ve gained.
But we don’t see our gains as gains, cause in hindsight we only see what we’ve missed.
Can we just stop it already and move on from mistakes?
No easy remedy except the realization that you win some and you lose some – that is just how the story goes 🙂
Forget hindsight, be present.