Man is a rational creature. He loves to reason. He loves to analyze. Pick apart. Dissect. Elaborate. Remember how you spent 4 hours picking apart something that happened over 30 seconds. Wasnt it outrageous? Most of the complexity that you introduce into the event did not exist at the time the event actually occured. It did not have a reason. Maybe it did, but you werent aware of it at that point of time. So, thats not the reason. 'Yeah, he should have seen the off swinger' thing makes perfect logical sense he should have but he couldn't. Capiche. C'est bon.
One of the typical situations to which this self-torture cum masochism applies is decisions. Whats a decision? You have some information, some course of action to be taken and you have options. The first 2 are ok, the problem comes with options. With options - confusion, delusion and collusion. Ok. Ok. No collusion. So, there are some pros and cons that stick out with each course of action and you choose one after some careful though.
Now, what about after a decision after it is made. Does it make any sense to look at it? No! Why? You are making a judgement of the situation based on your evaluation of the situation at that point of time. It is based on the information available to you at that point of time. Actually, I doubt if there are any investment bankers reading this. They have perfectly understood the concept of information. A trading decision might be based on all kinds of statistical modeling and high end math but it is impossible to be perfectly certain. There is some inherent error. The idea is to get into the picture as much information as possible, if possible (preferably) information not available to everyone. Buy Microsoft stock in 1982. Buy Amazon stock in 1992. Stay miles away from Enron. How would it be if you knew it right then and no one did. Both aspects are important, if you didn't know you wouldn't buy it. If everyone did, everyone will, or actually Microsoft won't sell it (as Microsoft knows it as well). Slightly complicated point.
So what is the conclusion of all this? It is meaningless for you to say 'Oh yeah man, I should have done that'.You can only take comfort in these 3 things:
- I tried to gather as much information as I could
- I looked at all the information I had gathered
- The choice I took did justice to the information and my needs at that point in time. I was convinced.
The guy who had loads of fun in college says he should have worked. The guy who worked hard in college says he should have had some more fun. The guy who was nerdy says he probably shouldn't have been so nerdy. The guy who partied every night says maybe he should have hit those books. The guy who decided to go for an MBA thinks he should have gone for Ph. D. . The guy who gets into IIT feels he should have chilled out in life and had one hell of social life like the B. Lit. guy in Loyola. The guy in Loyola feels jealous of the guy with the IIT stamp and 'major' career prospects. Without realizing that.. . In final judgement, I feel such talk is meaningless. You made a decision then, based on your evaluation of the situation and your needs then. Just embrace it and if you need to act differently now, do so, but do not regret a decision made.
PS: I know people love sports. But please don't read between lines. Pretty please. :D
11 comments:
hi da. linked to you. nice blog.
Thats a very well written piece of wisdom.
Hey is this an anti-post to my black-and-white retrospection? :)
Makes sense, even if initially I was going "Huh?!"
I like this post! Hindsight is a bad thing. I would often wish we could end up making the perfect decision by spawning threads which process the information into future so that we can conclude which would be the optimal path to take. *sigh* If wishes were horses they could fly!
Oh this is where everyone is hanging out..
This guy is good...hmm hmm..
Welcome. Thank you Thank you for the many comments.
[sarath] Thanks. I have linked you too.
[amitchat] thanks.
[prasanth] Yeah, it's anti to your black and white retrospection. Looking at things objectively is fun but you cannot fault yourself for not seeing things objectively
at that point in time as they look now.
[kirthi] Yeah. That is good. Parallel processing of multiple choices with perfect answer coming out in the end. Having no option makes things so much easier in life. Choosing courses in IIT was so simple. Here, no way, I keep going back and forth for 3 weeks before I get some kind of picture, and even then I am cribbing. A little at least :D.
[vc] Thanks :D. I try to write as well I as can write :D .
I like that intro; " when Pigs Fly to the US "
where PIG = Poor Indian Graduate
ahh, Pigs do have Wings!!!
*20-20 Hindsight*
One lesson I learnt from my hindsight; I should resist whiskey on Sunday night ..if I have an important meeting Monday morning.... (Gosh, that terrible hangover !!)... but wine/vodka is just fine. One pathetic performance, saved me from future blunders....
Afterall life gives second chances; even if we cant undo the past! From the safety of hindsight everything looks so apparent and its better to learn from past mistakes; rather than earn the sobriquet "Some people never learn". I totally agree with your beginning ... " man is a rational creature " he loves to reason / analyze / dissect/ elaborate .." Humans are where they are, cause we analyze the past when we plan the future. Like we cant undo an earthquake; but be careful about city-planning at quake-prone areas. Humans learn from hindsight; not only from their own experiences; but also from accumulated knowledge thousands of years in our culture. We cannot undo 9/11 tragedy, but in future, we sure can make safety regulations tighter n make cockpit doors safer!!!
TRUE: We cant undo our past....
TRUE: We cant undo choices we made in college
But heck ... LIFE DOES NOT END THERE...
If you partied everynight and performed bad in college; thats sad, but its sadder if you dont regret about it! Maybe its time that you learn the value of discipline in life ... Humans have the unique gift of hindsight; why not use it?
"You need to (better) face the consequences of your decision but you aren't actually responsible for the consequences being the consequnces".
I've heard a varient:
You can make your choices.
But you cannot choose the consequences of your choice.
[anonymous1] Heh..yeah..that was the basic joke i was implying..pigs DO have wings you see. "Resist whiskey on saturdays" heh..interesting approach..stick to vodka and wine :D...
Thanks for the comment. It's almost as long as my post! Yeah, I fully agree with what you said. When something goes wrong you need to be brave enough to understand and learn from your mistakes. If, you refuse to learn your lesson you are just inviting history to repeat itself. I think the point I was essentially trying to make was that yeah you should realize your mistake and go through a period of regret, but there is no point wallowing in your self pity and making your life miserable. The chances are that your mistakes will repeat and you will get into a vicious circle.
[anonymous2] Yeah. You cannot choose the consequences of your choice. Even if the consequences are bad you cannot hate yourself for having made that choice. The only thing that you can console yourself with is that when you did make that choice that choice did look good to you.
I feel hindsight is tough. Being brutally honest with yourself is necessary but very tough from experience. You refuse to acknowledge your mistakes. You are always looking for ways to reason around it. Excuses basically.
Hey Ramani,
I'm sorry for the long comments; both earlier Anons (posts 7 & 8) are me ...
If "space" interests you ... I'll recommend an awesome documenatry I saw yesterday on the History Channel; based on NASA's expeditions after moon-landing ... as such it included: Apollo 13, Skylab, Hubble telescope, Columbia n Challenger missions. It was a look from the Mission-Control-Room ....
What absolutely struck me, was these words: "Failure Is Not An Option" of Gene Krantz; who was the flight-director of Apollo 11 moon-landing and Apollo 13 rescue-operation. It was fascinating to see how, after any failure; the mission-control team painstakingly reviewed every single data ... in order to fix-it /improve upon it .......
This is how humans as a species progressed sooo much more than any other in the animal-world; by learning from the past ....
Coming to regretting about mistakes;
I think we got difference of opinion here;
I believe in the "process" of regretting ....
feeling sad, morose, stupid, idiot, a complete moron ... after failure .... Then I move on ....
Its a very natural process for me ..
Ahhhh...
I mostly end up making long comments...
*Intern
Hmm..I totally agree with you..I feel like a total wreck during one of those phases..but you always come out wiser and mature..till a bigger untrained for setback hits you..and you are down again..and the cycle repeats..
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