Dangers of Hindsight
What is hindsight? One dictionary defines it as the ability or opportunity to understand and judge an event or experience after it has occurred. Consider the following five dangers of hindsight:
Confusing hindsight with foresight— there are many decisions that we would not make if our foresight were as clear as our hindsight. Confusing the two means we will judge others’ motives based on things they could not have predicted.
Never using hindsight—never looking back robs us of the opportunity to learn from experience. The process of looking back is many times called evaluation.
Dwelling on hindsight—leads to obsessing on the coulda, shoulda, woulda without dealing with where we are now.
Encouraging us to do nothing— we become gun-shy about making decisions because our hindsight makes it obvious that we are not perfect.
Forgetting that hindsight is a limited view—remember that this is still a limited viewpoint and is not close to the all knowing expanse of God’s viewpoint.