Learning Backwards

Soren Kierkegaard famously said “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

Life is only lived in one direction—straight forward, head on, looking through the front windshield. Understanding life, however, only comes with reflection on what has happened, looking in the rearview mirror.

Most of our real, lasting, meaningful lessons are learned backwards, after the fact.

But we plow forward with no time to stop, even for a moment, to process. In the spirit of efficiency, we sift out all the slack, the space, the downtime, the breathing room in our schedule. Consequently, we make the same mistakes a second, a third, a fourth time (which ironically adds to our inefficiency).

Work in time to reflect, to process, to learn backwards. Moving forward will be richer (and more efficient).