While awaiting the 11:00 news to come on, I heard this quote at the end of Criminal Minds. I’m not a big watcher of the show but I have seen a few and know that each one ends rather heavily and always with a great quote. I just caught this one: “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards” – Soren Kierkegaard. Ah…that is the kick in the teeth of life. We must live through the ugliness and pain and mistakes and suffer the consequences in order to truly understand. Therein lies the key to the rest of the quote. We must continue to live forward; somehow learn from the past and push ahead with wisdom and experience. However, though we may not repeat the same incident, there will be ample opportunity to stumble and ache and learn and push forward again.
A more cavalier phrase that we toss around is “Hindsight is 20/20”. I much prefer Kierkegaard’s version. It carries the weight of the world on its words. With aging is supposed to come wisdom. And that windfall, I will wear as a badge.