IT TAKES A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF COURAGE to live life, bravery in the face of constant and often overwhelming challenges. Like life-threatening illness and eventual ostomy surgery. In most areas of endeavor, cowards don’t succeed, unless they’re politicians, but then they’ve chosen a profession mandating cowardice. The rest of us, through all the often-undeserved hurdles that fate plops into our path, we keep on keeping on. “Life can only be understood backwards,” wrote Sören Kierkegaard, “but it must be lived forward.” I think he was overly optimistic with respect to understanding our past. All the countless times I’ve gone over past experience in my head, and there is still much I don’t get. Why did I do that? It made no sense! There are just too many things that impact our backward glances: faulty memory, ego, a history of drug use, overactive imagination, and conflict of interest to cite a few. That’s why I also take issue with the old saying about hindsight being 20/20. That’s overly optimistic nonsense. Or world-class delusion. An untalented athlete, for instance, is likely kidding himself, after his loss, by thinking…if only I’d practiced two more hours a day. It can be really hard to be honest with yourself. I have a friend who always wanted to be a stand-up comedian. He became a Circuit Judge instead. I think there’s a joke in there somewhere.
Another thought provoking post Henry....and I have the punch line for you. Hope you don't mind?
"They laughed when I said I was going to do stand-up comedy, well they're not laughing now!"
Keep well.
V.J.😷
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Hello henryM.
Thanks for bringing this concept to the fore, as it seems to be one of several useful aspects of life to contemplate a little more fully.
In days gone by, when I needed to help people grasp the importance of some of the fundamentals of 'going forward' in life, the concept of 'looking forward' was one which seemed to be important.
I have already documented this elswhere (as 'Concept 4. views'), so I'll try to reproduce it below:
Best wishes
Bill
PS: Unfortunately I cannot seem to download this page as it's in the wrong format and I am not computer literate enough to get around the problem. Thus, this is one where I'll have to give up and not look back!