20-20 Hindsight aceo

20-20 Hindsight aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

How many times have you kicked yourself for saying something when you should have bitten your tongue? How many times have you hit send instead of rereading that hot tempered email just once more? How many times has what you done in haste come back to bite you in the ass?

Many, probably.

The sad thing is we never seem to learn. Well, lots of us.

I took this picture in Cape May, NJ and I thought I was taking pictures of a non-discript area of the hotel. A glass-enclosed outside walkway. There was enough light because the sun was just setting ...so I was shooting pictures but not paying much attention to what I was doing (typical).

When I got them on my computer I was shocked. Not only couldn't you see much of the hallway but you could see the blazing sunset reflected in the glass. Had I been paying attention at all, I might have noticed. When I was walking away had I turned and looked over my shoulder I definitely would have noticed because I would have seen the bigger picture. But when I was shooting I was so hyper focused on the hallway beyond the glass I didn't even see the sun setting on the window....in fact I didn't even see the window.

I have a feeling that when you shoot off your mouth... or email a letter you later (probably sooner) regret it's a lot like my not seeing the sunset. You get so hyper-focused on one thing you can't see the bigger picture. Even if its as big and bright and obvious as that sunset.

You feel hurt, or indignant, or put upon, or dissed, or angry...or what ever...fill in the word.... and you lose site of everything else. Like later for example. What will happen later? And how will you ever take the words back? And maybe you mean this now but will you in an hour? And how would you feel if your boss...wife... husband... daughter....Dr. Phil....Judge Judy....ever saw what you wrote? Cause you know it's going to make you look 'less than' not the person you wrote it about....

Supposedly hind-sight is 20-20 but maybe if you pay attention to experience forsight can be too?