A few months ago I received a gift. It was from a friend who lives a long distance from me; I think it was supposed to be a late birthday present. Anyway, the present was a book. More specifically, a sort of diary. "A Q & A a day: a five-year journal". The purpose of the book is simple, each page represents a new calendar day. And underneath the date is a question. It might be, 'Who made you smile today?', or 'What is the recipe for creativity?'. Whatever the question is, underneath you have five spaces. The idea is that throughout the year, you answer the question at the top of the page in the top space. Each year, when you get to the date, you answer the same question. So you end up with five answers to each question, spread over five years. When you have filled in the entire journal, you can see the evolution of your answers over five years, so you can see how much you have developed, be it friendships, jobs, relationships...there are questions on all aspects of your life. And some which just extract your thoughts. They may or may not change over the time you write, but that's the excitement of seeing how much you have changed!
But the arrival of this journal got me thinking about the evolution of life. At the time of living our life, the changes we go through are unnoticeable. We don't notice each day that we are getting that little bit older, or more spotty, or cleverer. It is only several years on that we look back and think; wow. I used to be so young, and I thought I knew everything. But when a couple of years have passed, and we become nostalgic, sadly we tend to look back at a younger version of ourselves in a more critical manner. We analyse our choices and try to understand why we made them, and what our life would be like if we could go back and correct that mistake. We think, ending that relationship was a stupid idea. If only I'd thought a bit more before giving it up. But of course, it is only with hindsight that we can see things for what they truly are. Truth be told, hindsight is a useless tool. We cannot change our past actions by thinking of different endings, we cannot tell our past self that they are making a stupid decision. But given the chance, would you really choose to? All of your past decisions have shaped who you are today. The choices that then seemed so insignificant had bigger consequences than you could ever have realised, and so even just changing one could have massively altered your future paths. Similarly, there are things which at the time seemed terribly important, such as exam results, or a lie you told, but five years on you realise that it had no major impact on your life; in fact it was completely insignificant!
The only way to use hindsight positively, is to look back and recognise that although you made some silly decisions and cannot change the consequences of those, you can learn from your mistakes and move forward with them. Without those choices, both good and bad, you would never be who you are today, and that is a thing to celebrate. Of course, there will always be times that you regret decisions you made in the past, and they will always stick with you. You may not ever be able to view them in a constructive light. And that's okay. Because we, as humans, all make mistakes that evolve into regrets. And with times where you were hurt, or you hurt others, hindsight may seem like a cruel gift. But just remember - sometimes people with the worst pasts can create the best futures. Because they have the ability to learn from what they have lost. You can too.
L xx
www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQacsqQ2Gdg The Vaccines - 20/20
