Hindsight Mindsight

I’ve struggled to articulate – in “digestible” terms – what I mean by “VISIONING” … i.e., being able to “picture” how the future might unfold – including discernment of hurdles and barriers to be overcome … and HOW they might be overcome – toward getting us most directly, efficiently and effectively where we want and need to go. 

VISIONING is an extremely helpful skill to develop and engage.  For those lacking the capacity or inclination for VISIONING or FORESIGHT, there’s nothing like EXPERIENCE to spawn indelible HINDSIGHT!

  

Hindsight can foster insight … like insight into what works and what doesn’t.  And it can plant the seeds of foresight … like envisioning the need to invent a snow plow … or an axle … to yield better outcomes!   

HISTORY is an indispensible companion resource (except for caveats below): 

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

George Santayana

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“There are three kinds of men:

The ones that learn by reading. 

The few who learn by observation. 

The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.”

Will Rogers

Odds-makers depend almost exclusively on hindsight for insight into foresight … exploring “how things turned out the last time” – and WHY – except that they swim against formidable cross-currents of unwarranted optimism or pessimism anchored to emotional baggage. 

Mechanistically, Visioning liberally utilizes “If …,  Then … “ conjecturing.  For example: 

If I drink and drive / text and drive, then my chances of an accident substantially increase.   

  

If I get a college degree, then my prospects for lifetime income increase more than two-fold.

If I continue consuming things that aren’t “good” for me and fail to exercise, then I can reasonably expect to encounter health problems

The major forces interfering with productive “Mindsight Visioning” include: Wanton Willfulness, an inclination toward self-indulgence and immediate gratification, calculated gambling on delayed ramification, short-sightedness, low Emotional IQ, defiant “Rogue” malingering, unanchored Values/Principles, misplaced passion, truncated dreams, foreshortened accountability and a perverse reliance on deus ex machina rescues.   

For hindsight to be a certified 20/20 proposition, it requires careful scrutiny – absent rationalization – and, often, coldly calculating analysis.  Exactly WHY something happened and HOW are critically useful features of hindsight.  Depending on how far out we are from actual events, and how much vested interest we may have in how they turned out, our recollections may become distorted.  Thus, caveats abound:

“Hindsight is a double-edged sword. Too much of it and the past seems inevitable, With too little hindsight, a panoramic perspective is impossible.”  LANCE B. KURKE

“Hindsight is of little value in the decision-making process. It distorts our memory for events that occurred at the time of the decision so that the actual consequence seems to have been a "foregone conclusion." Thus, it may be difficult to learn from our mistakes.” DIANE F. HALPERN

“Hindsight, or our ability to see our past clearly, is a learning function that, when damaged ... renders us unable to look at the past to guide ourselves through the present and into the future. Without this ability, we cannot learn from our mistakes. We cannot clean up the wreckage of our actions. We are locked into a cycle of repeating the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. This is commonly known as the definition of insanity.”  BARBARA S. COLE

So, yes, there are caveats to a blind reliance on knee-jerk hindsight.  But we can get better at benchmarking and evaluating it as we go.  It provides helpful perspective over time, and it certainly beats the alternative of going through life with either rose-colored glasses or bags over our heads. 

Bottom Line:  Develop as much FORESIGHT VISIONING as you can, bolstered by whatever hindsight is available.  But don’t shy from forging ahead in the direction you want to go “with eyes wide open” … laying tracks for future HINDSIGHTS that will be particularly useful in future VISIONING!  Quartermaster  [Coming attraction: CONSEQUENCES] 

“If I had to live my life again I'd make all the same mistakes--only sooner.”

TALLULAH BANKHEAD