Yesterday explains some of who you are today.
But what you do today is already introducing the person you will meet tomorrow.
Hindsight can be extremely revealing when used to improve our journey and prospects.
It teaches us what worked, what did not work and something we do not discuss enough:
Our former ignorance of ourselves.
Stop and consider your journey from wherever it began until this present moment—right now, while reading this.
It is remarkable.
Much of it was unplanned.
We participated in the past while journeying toward the present, but we could not fully understand that history until afterward.
Why?
Because we were busy living it.
THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER
Let us put a clever and disruptive trio of words in its proper place:
Should have.
Could have.
Would have.
These words deserve examination, but they should not be allowed to run the entire household.
Hindsight sees with information that yesterday’s person did not possess.
That does not excuse every choice.
It explains why today’s person can now recognize what yesterday’s person missed.
TAKE THE MOMENT YOU ARE IN—RIGHT NOW
At this moment, you are where you are.
If you rise from your chair and walk across the room, then that becomes where you are.
In other words:
Wherever you go, there you are.
You may not have chosen every circumstance that brought you here. Life includes events, losses and conditions that nobody requested.
But within this moment, you still possess some power to choose what happens next.
Regret may visit.
Let it teach.
Do not let it move in permanently.
WORTHY NOTE: The NOW deserves more credit. It is tomorrow’s yesterday being formed one millisecond at a time. Mind boggles.
TAKE THIS MOMENT FURTHER
Ask yourself:
What can I do right here and right now?
Separate genuine limitations from blame, excuses and stories that no longer serve you.
The mind can become occupied with “what could have been” and “why didn’t I?”
Those questions may reveal a lesson.
But after the lesson appears, apply it NOW.
Otherwise, hindsight becomes entertainment instead of guidance.
DIDN’T SEIZE THE MOMENT?
I have had a few of those moments—perhaps more than a few. LOL.
Lack of courage, conviction and knowledge joined forces with fear, doubt, hesitation and confusion.
They went to work on me.
You too?
There can only be so many missed opportunities before something inside wakes up and says:
“Enough. This time, we move.”
That awakening demonstrates our continuing ability to do—or not do.
Yesterday’s hesitation can become today’s courage when we recognize it in time.
THE PERSON I WILL BE TOMORROW COMES FROM TODAY
As we go, we learn.
Life naturally wants to grow, thrive and survive.
We may not control everything that happens, but we participate in more outcomes than we sometimes admit.
Every choice made today sends something forward.
A habit.
A consequence.
A skill.
A wound.
A healing.
A direction.
Tomorrow’s person will receive whatever today’s person prepares and sends.
Choose the package carefully.
YESTERDAY’S PERSON IS HERE—TOMORROW’S IS NOT
Look at yourself and behold the truth.
The person you were is present within the person you are—but not as an unchangeable prison.
Your history can become a guide.
It can show you where you were strong, where you were mistaken and where grace carried you despite your limited understanding.
What was is gone.
What is deserves respect.
What will be?
Let us keep walking and see.
LET’S RECOUNT THE STAGES
Between birth and ten years old, we know only what that stage permits us to know.
From ten to twenty, life rises before us and asks us to rise with it.
Then come twenty to thirty, thirty to forty and onward.
Each stage presents itself for us to live.
We may turn the volume up or down, participate fully or withdraw, but the years continue passing quietly.
At seventy, we should not condemn the twenty-year-old for failing to possess seventy years of experience.
That would be unfair mathematics.
The better question is:
What did each stage contribute to the person standing here now?
MENTORING, GUIDING & BEING TOLD
Here is something I learned:
I can give a teenager, young adult or older adult excellent feedback that may influence them for the better—if they allow it.
In my own case, there were times when nobody appeared to initiate a course correction, so events simply played out.
Imagine how direction or mentoring might have changed the journey.
Now consider the occasions when good guidance was offered but rejected.
Oh my!
Reality still says:
It happened.
It is done.
Learn—and continue.
A mentor can point toward a door.
The person being guided must still decide whether to walk through it.
LIFE IS MYSTERIOUS
Life continues offering opportunities for correction, betterment and discovery—often without our asking.
Then life plays its wild card:
Time.
Time reminds us that opportunities are not always permanent.
Its purpose is not merely to frighten us.
It teaches respect for the turn we have been given.
PAUSE FOR CAUSE
You cannot return to yesterday and act sooner.
You can act today before it becomes another yesterday.
SIMPLICITY LOVES YOU
Thinking, dreaming, regretting and fantasizing can consume the present when they never lead to action.
Respect your NOW.
It is the only place where yesterday can be understood and tomorrow can be influenced.
Be grateful for your turn.
Do not become consumed by everything you failed to capture.
Who captured it all?
Acceptance is not surrender.
It is recognizing reality clearly enough to work with it.
PEARLS INSIGHT
Hindsight becomes wisdom only when its lesson changes present behavior.
Yesterday supplies evidence.
Today makes the decision.
Tomorrow receives the result.
RICHIE SPEAKS
Do not beat up yesterday’s you with knowledge that only today’s you possesses.
Thank that former person for carrying you this far.
Correct what needs correcting.
Then send tomorrow a better-prepared version.
FINAL SAY
The person U are today came from yesterday.
The person U will be tomorrow is already coming from today.
Let regret become instruction.
Let experience become guidance.
Let gratitude protect the present.
Your history explains you—but it does not receive the final word over you.
That word is still being written.
Right now.
— Richie
Pearls for the Soul
when you feed the soul, you feed everything.
https://pearlsforthesoul.com
Been expecting you