Why looking back is a pointless and emotionally corrosive exercise
Most of us have a weakness for looking back and wondering what might have been. ‘Buyer’s Remorse‘ doesn’t just apply to purchases. It’s just as common for people to decide on one path, then spend time imagining what might have happened if they had chosen the other one. This doesn’t just waste time and energy on what cannot be changed; it tempts you into risky and questionable actions aimed at ‘putting things right’ or ‘getting the best of both worlds.’
It’s easy to rationalize a belief that what you didn’t do was bound to have turned out in a specific way. We all know that the future rarely turns out as we expected — our human ability to forecast what will happen (and how we will feel about it when it does) is minimal. Applying the same faulty forecasting and wishful thinking to past event to decide how they would have proceeded, if only Smith hadn’t made that error or our own cowardice blocked the way, is just as bad.
There’s no way you can know what would have happened — not even by looking at what did. There’s enough randomness in events to ensure that, even if you could rewind time and replay the past from the same starting point, the outcome might prove to be quite different.
Learning the wrong lessons
Learning from the past is something we think is simple. It’s not. It’s as easy to learn the wrong lessons as the right ones. Given our tendency to replay past hurts and humiliations over and over again in the mind, until the pain gets so bad we resolve never, never to be hurt that way again, what we learn all too often is to avoid future circumstances that remind us — even remotely — of what went before.
So the manager who was hoodwinked once by an unscrupulous subordinate treats today’s trustworthy staff with barely concealed suspicion. A person who has convinced him or herself that some past risk would have turned into a huge success — if only he or she had shown the courage to take it — is psychologically prepared to jump into some new gamble without a second look.
I wonder how many errors arise from linking current and past events in this way; or how many times people make bad choices, simply because they recall some previous decision and act to correct what they now believe was a mistake?
I suspect the number is vast.
Getting a grip on reality
To put it plainly, you can’t correct a past error by doing now what you thought you should have done then. Times and circumstances change. The situations may seem to be the same, on the surface, but that similarity could well have more to do with you wanting them to be the same than because they are. If you’ve been carrying some hurt around for years, the temptation is bound to be strong to decide you can, at last, put it down by ‘replaying’ the source of the pain and getting it right this time.
People romanticize past successes and explain away failures by blaming them on events or other people. They assume they know how things would have happened, if only they’d taken the right path. This creates a version of the past that is already far from reality. They then use that fictionalized picture to create the basis for present and future action. It’s crazy.
If there’s a lesson to be learned, learn it and move on. If you get hurt, set out to heal yourself; don’t make up your mind that you’ll never be hurt again, because you will. There’s no way to avoid life’s hard knocks, however much you hide from supposedly similar situations. If you feel regret for what might have been, let it go.
The future has its own risks, rewards, and mistakes. As you move forward into it, why add to the pitfalls by weighing yourself down with needless baggage from the past?
Technorati Tags: learning from the past, repeating past mistakes, letting the past control the present, letting go, buyer’s remorse, looking back, suspicion, defensiveness
May 30th, 2008 at 4:56 am
Carmine Coyote has a valuable lesson. Let go of the past. Let go of the dead horse that you are riding. It is easier said than done. In the past, I often simulated past events in my mind. I try to squeeze wisdom out of it and, more importantly, to try give myself a short lived boost of energy to tackle a challenge that appears to be similar. However, this exercise has often led me to perform at sub-par of my ability. When I question myself, I go back and simulate again. It is a cycle that has exhausted me. In meditation, I let go of thoughts without judgment or assigning value to it in order to reach a state of content. I applied this technique to past “mistakes” or “roads not taken”. I found myself lifted from the burden of caring a heavy emotional rock or horse. But old habit die hard and its been a challenge for me to apply this lesson. I am encouraged by the words of Yogi Berra.
Yogi said “when you come to a fork in the road, just take it”. What he meant is that when you go to his house in New Jersey, you will come to a fork in a road. However, no matter what path you will take it will take to his house. I realized that no matter what path I take it will always took me to a place I meant to be. This thought is incomplete. It is like saying “2+2 is 4″, but “4″ what?
Lord John Maynard Keynes said that “in the long-term, we are all dead”. We are all moving towards that ultimate destination but a only a handful of us know when, how, why and where we are going to die. If that vital part of our life is not controlled by us or we cannot make 100% accurate prediction, why to stress about it? No matter what path you take, it will lead you to your death. Do not despair; instead it see as a benefit. You are not in charge of that part of your existence. You can influence it, but not discourage it. Let go of worries and concerns - you are moving in a right path. I can guarantee you that a path you are walking on will return you to where you came from (i.e. earth, your maker, etc.). Enjoy the moment. Let go of the past mistakes. You can do it - I know you can.
July 4th, 2008 at 9:24 am
I like to think of statements like “I will never get hurt again” as personal policy statements. Some tend to write policy (personal, public, or business) as a response to one incident. It is easy to see, though, that applying such a policy in retrospect would have kept them from rich experiences. Writing policy that keeps out the bad and lets in the good is an art. It takes practice and evaluation.