I once met with a client who saved a neighbour from suicide. He was worried about this neighbour when he didn’t answer the door. He ended up breaking in and discovering the neighbour in the bathtub with his wrists slashed. This was a great act and one for which this client should be very proud.
Years later, the neighbour whose life was spared ended up murdering his wife. Now how is my client supposed to feel? His heroic act of saving a desperate man from suicide ultimately led to the brutal murder of an innocent victim.
I think this case illustrates well the nature of hindsight. We tend to focus on the result of our acts regardless of the intent behind such acts. As a result we can be plagued with past events and decisions that turn out badly.
An imaginary experiment
Imagine that you were asked to choose a marble from one of two jars. Choosing a black marble would result in the death of a loved one, while a white marble would spare him or her. Now let’s suppose that jar #1 had 90% white marbles and jar #2 had only 10% white marbles. Which jar would you choose from?
Unless you can’t count, or have strange superstitions, you would pick from jar #1. But what if the worst happened and you chose a black marble? In such a case you would be overwhelmed by the guilt of having caused the death of a loved one and you would certainly wish you could go back in time and start over. Would you then choose from jar #2? Of course not! The only smart course of action remains to select from jar #1.
This imaginary dilemma illustrates the problem with hindsight. We often wish we could go back in time and make different choices. The problem is that those choices were made with the knowledge that we had at that time, not with the knowledge we now have. Given what we knew then, the choice would remain exactly the same.
Living with the right choice
We cannot fault ourselves for being unable to predict the future. We have no choice but to accept certain unforeseen consequences. The man described above was plagued by his act because of its ultimate outcome. Yet he did the right thing given the events of that day. The challenge for him, and for all of us who make decisions that turn out badly, is to learn to live with having made the right choice.
Tagged as hindsight, Self-perception.
Posted in Depression, Human nature, Life.
Posted on 25 Jul 2007
