[galaxyLogic]

I believe in the Myth of Second Chance and Third and so on. It is what we tell ourselves to keep going. Nothing wrong with that.

At the time you make a decision it is often impossible to know what its consequences are, so if we had made a different decision things might actually be worse.

Not making a decision in time can also have negative consequences.

[bruce511]

Hindsight living, is like hindsight investing (I should have bought Apple stock in 1999) useless.

With hindsight it's easy to cherry-pick missteps. And from those missteps fantasize a hypothetical outcome. And obviously in this alternate universe you only ever come out better.

Yes, there are pivotal moments. I've made big decisions along the way. I've made some mistakes.

But everything good in my life has come from this one path.

I make a choice to celebrate the present, not hanker after a mythical alternative. I choose to be content with the present, and contentment is the source of my happiness.

It's easy to compare my life with others, and find others richer, or more famous, or married, or unmarried. Social media amplifies this.

But it's also easy to compare to others who walked a harder path, and have a harder path in front of them. At this stage of my life its less about climbing one more rung, and more about helping those below me, smoothing their path as much as possible.

No one goes through life perfectly. Hindsight living is not helpful and contentment beats regret every day of the week.

[braza]

I can relate 100% to that with my own experience coming from a poor economic background and coming to a more affluent background right now where any misstep can make me goes back 10+ years of economic development.

Others placed something like "fear-based paralysis" and I get it, but when you're responsible for making that transition between poverty and minimum affluence, you start to develop a "defensive-based proneness to action" instead.

For instance, since I was quite bit ambitious to get out of my past situation, at least for me most of my decisions were made thinking in some factors like: - Do not get involved in situations where I can get murdered (doing something stupid myself or getting into other people's path that can lead me to be murdered) - Avoid any situations in which I could end up in jail - Avoid having children without any financial and societal conditions - Avoid any drugs - Avoid any error that could impact my net worth more than 5%

Living in a world of avoidance is not pleasant, most of the time, it sucks, and the feedback loop is sometimes so subtle that you need to exercise your mind to think in the future most of the time.

I have a happy life today, because I saw some of those things happen to some close friends, and there's no comeback from those. Sometimes you can find contentment in some other areas of your life, but if you have a certain level of ambition, you will never recover.

[galaxyLogic]

Now I'm a happy feller. I'm married to a fortune teller, I get my fortune told for free

  - Allen Toussaint "Fortune Teller"    :-)

[mlrtime]

100% correct but I think what more people should do is post-mortems on import decisions.

Too many people blame others for their current situation. Try taking a philosophy that we have more control and look back upon decisions we made and why we made them.

Not "I should have bought apple stock". but "why didn't I buy apple stock?"

[alimw]

> Nothing wrong with that.

One thing wrong with it is that the myth leads us to blame ourselves for the failure to recover as well.

[galaxyLogic]

Yes. False beliefs breed more false beliefs, and at some point they catch up with us.

I had a colleague who was fanatically into soccer. I asked how does he feel when his team loses? It is devastating for many especially in big games. But he said he is willing to take the risk of rooting for a specific team and possibly losing because it gives him excitement. It's a bit like a drug really you get addicted to your team winning. It's a bit like any gambling addiction.

If you had no interest in the outcome of a soccer-match you wouldn't get very excited watching it.

In reality most people don't have a real interest in a soccer-game since they don't gamble money on it. Therefore it seems people pick a soccer-team to root for BECAUSE we want to get excited. We want that adrenaline. (or is it dopamine?) We want to believe that the arch of history tends towards our team winning.

False Belief 1: If my soccer-team wins I'll be much better off, much happier.

Consequent False Belief: Since my team did not win I must now be desolate. I must feel bad.