Hey y’all. How’s it going? It’s been super cold and snowy here, but I’m trying to stay warm. I’ve been thinking a lot about hindsight. We all know it’s 20/20, but it seems to be a recurring theme in my life. I think mxmtoon said it best in the song ” Growing Pains. “
You and I aren't so different
Hindsight has perfect vision
You don't even know all the places that you'll go
But I'm sorry that you feel so alone
Because that’s the problem with hindsight. It’s essentially useless. By the time you have it, you can’t actually use it. It just taunts you and mocks you. I often say I wish I could go back to the first time I thought I was fat so I could enjoy being skinny. But I can’t do that, so what good does it do me?
One time, someone asked me if I could give my younger self some advice, what would it be? This was my answer… “Girl, you better suck it up and get it together because this is nothing. Your life is going to go sooo much worse. Save your tears for a few years. You’re going to need them all”. That apparently was not the right answer, but I think younger me would appreciate a heads-up.
I’ve said before life has a funny way of working itself out in some way or another, but I’ve also said that knowing everything will be okay doesn’t help me. I say it’s like if you say you need money and someone says they’ll give you 100, but not right now. It’s useless. I still think mxmtoon said it best in the song…
Everything's gonna get better, everything's gonna get worse
When it gets hard, remember that's the way it always works
I feel like this song may be more useful than hindsight, but maybe it’s not actually useless. Because what I should have done is what I’m doing now. What I shouldn’t have done is what I stopped doing. So maybe hindsight isn’t totally useless after all. I’m sure I’m going to make more mistakes, but if I learn from them and grow from them, then it’s not a waste at all. In his song The Hard Way Anson Seabra said,
Sometimes you have to touch the flame to know it burns
Sometimes you have to fall in love to know it hurts
And somebody told me once that hearts were made to break
And sometimes the only medicine is in the pain
Yeah, some things you just have to learn
The hard way
Experience is the best teacher, and sometimes thatexperience sucks. I always joked that I was allergic to instructions as a kid. I liked to learn by doing, and a lot of times it was slow learning. In hindsight, I could have saved a ton of time by reading instructions, and now I do. I don’t just look at them either. I follow them, and it’s so much faster.
Maybe hindsight isn’t meant to save us, but I also don’t think it’s meant to mock us. It’s a tool to make our tomorrows better than our yesterdays. Instead of resenting it, I need to appreciate it because it’s what made me the person I am today. Not the best version of myself, but a better version of myself.
Thanks for reading. I did quietly put a small book out into the world recently, which feels weird to say out loud, but yeah… It’s called: The Line Between Determination and Stupidity. I added the link for anyone who wants to check it out. If you enjoyed this post, be sure to click that like button, and I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Until next time…
Sincerely,
LIBD
