It Always Makes Sense.....In Hindsight
Yesterday was the first session of a financial class I host for our church’s youth group students. This is our 10th year, and it’s always one of the highlights of my spring. In the first session, we cover God’s ownership, contentment, and the difference between needs and wants. As we were talking about needs vs. wants, we had what is always a fun conversation. Many needs and wants are clear. Food = need. Video game = want. Clothing = need. Luxury clothing = want.
Other categories, however, always drum up a lot of debate. One such category is cell phones. Is it a need? Or a want? 10 years ago, the room was split. Having a cell phone was important…..but a need? Today, cell phones receive a near-unanimous vote for the “need” camp. I don’t disagree with this assessment.
The conversation took an interesting twist when we started talking about life in the 90s when cell phones were around, but not used the same as they are today. I explained how I had a cell phone mounted in my car, but I couldn’t carry it around with me. One of the students asked why we didn’t all push more toward having portable cell phones. A very simple question that, in hindsight, seems quite obvious. However, I explained that it just wasn't a thing and we didn’t even think about it as a thing. Who would even need or want a phone in their pocket 24 hours per day!?!? It seemed unfathomable to us back then. Then just a handful of years later, we all carried phones in our pockets.
In hindsight, this all makes sense. It’s like that with a lot of things in life. It’s easy to feel stupid when looking back, thinking about how much we missed the boat on something. A decision we made, the way we lived, something we bought, who we spent time with, a job we took, or even a job we left. It’s so easy to look back with perfect 20/20 vision, but life is anything but clear when we’re in the middle of it. We only know what we know. We have to make the best decision with the information we have at the time, then move on.
Many of us like to play the woulda, coulda, shoulda game. It’s a game we always lose. The odds are stacked against us because we get to judge our prior selves with clarity. It’s an unfair fight! It’s like today’s Lebron James playing 1v1 with his 5th-grade self……It will no doubt be a vicious beating. What’s the answer to this? Two things. First, grace. We need to give ourselves grace when we screw up. We most likely made the best choice with the information we had. Sometimes that goes well, and other times it’s a dumpster fire. It happens. Second, we can learn from it. We will most certainly screw up again in the (near) future, but we can get better each time. Let’s not waste a good mistake.
Always remember, life is lived through the windshield, not the rearview mirror. Have an awesome day!