There’s this weird thing that happens when we’re stressed and anxious. It feels like it isn’t going to be okay.
There isn’t much of a light at the end of the tunnel at all, yet we seem to make it through problem after problem almost unscathed.
We actually look back on times when we were experiencing a lot of stress and of course we’re glad it’s over, but we then admit to ourselves that it just wasn’t as bad as we thought it was at the time we were going through it.
The benefit of hindsight is powerful, but if we’re never applying it, then it’s not really a benefit at all. No, rather it's a mere observation.
Many times in life it feels like we're a passenger. We're on a train, looking out the window, and we're passing by everything with only a moment to really study the details before the landscape is behind us and we're observing a new frontier.
We might think we saw something but didn't, or maybe we perceived something differently than intended. It's the way we absorb information. We never really have a total handle on the picture and are left to analyze the pieces of our personal experience.
It's life. We get a glimpse. And sometimes this glimpse makes us anxious or worried when we're not actually seeing the full picture.
We're instead left to depend on incomplete conclusions that are loosely based on limited information.
But when those anxious moments hit us, we don't have the information at hand to feel okay. We don't have the benefit of hindsight.
The only thing we have for inventory is ourselves and our own experience. That's our evidence.
We're still breathing. We're still living and loving. We're making plans. We're laughing. We go to bed at night with blessings. Tangible ones.
At various points in the journey I can look back and view those silly anxieties with the benefit of hindsight. I can see that they created a couple dents in the armor, but nothing more.
I can see that the worries of each specific day were swept away by future information. By seeing the entire picture.
And I can see how each stressful situation has built me into my current self. And that might be the most encouraging part of all.