One of the things I talk about on the margin of this page is hindsight, that regressive view into the past where your mind's eye has 20/20 vision and we can see with perfect clarity that mistake we made that caused us to be where we are today. This would apply to anything that happens to us. It could be something we did, something we said or something we failed to do or say. At the point of conception when we do that one thing that has put us in the present dilemma we seem to be in, it was a rational choice to make or not to make, at least that is what we tell ourselves at the time, until it does not go our way. That is when that regressive vision starts to pull apart and analyze our actions, dissecting it like a high school kid in biology class with a frog. Then as in chemistry class, breaking it down to its basic elements trying understand the ester that we created. We scratch our heads and pace the floor, toss and turn in bed trying to understand why we did or failed to do the appropriate thing. My father had a saying about it, he said it was nothing but guilt that drove us to revisit something we felt that we should have done different and would tell us that at that time if we would have just "manned up to our responsibilities" we would be progressing instead of digressing.
Going over past mistakes and trying to rationalize to ourselves why we did things the way we did at the time is only satiation for ourselves. We are trying to vindicate what we did in order to feel better about it. It does nothing for anyone else it affected, they are still going to form their own opinion. It is what we do to sleep at night, to clear our conscience and so we can rationalize that what we did was right. What it does is paint over the truth and bury it under layers and layers of excuses or what at that time we refer to as reasons. But as we break it down to its most basic element we find it is nothing more than a lie.
Can this be corrected or atoned for? I think that depends on how many times we failed to man up to someone that believed in us. On how many times we tried to rationalize the reasons for our actions at the time. So many descriptive words for one little three letter word. One consonant and two vowels. How we skate around it. But I digress, so let me get back on track. If we have failed numerous times in our rationalizations to someone, no, I do not think that it can be corrected or be forgiven for. The reason I believe in this is because people do not forget. They do not forget their pain or hurt and those numerous rational reasons we gave them. If you use them long enough, you will find them used on you.
So what can we do once we realize we have over rationalized something? When we have given one to many reasons for why we did something or didn't. Take notes. That is not meant to take notes in order to perfect our rationalizing and to make it more reasonable or plausible. Rather to realize that we have rationalized ourselves into a corner and reason tells you it is time to man up. Now be it as it may, chances are we will never regain what we had and chances are more likely that we will lose everything and be left with nothing but our rational thinking.
This is something that we do not need hindsight to understand. It should be as clear as a crystal bell when we first offered it as a rational reason. It will come back to "bite us" do not ever doubt that it won't. And remember, we are being dissected long before our hindsight starts ripping it apart and we try to understand exactly where it went wrong, it went wrong with the first rationalized reason we gave.
By the way, do you know who gives the most rationalized reason? The person who say they never rationalize their reasons. (Wink..Wink..)
Later...
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