When we look back on our lives, it isn’t hard to classify choices and events as “good” or “bad.”

But how do we know?

Based on the outcomes of certain events, we tell ourselves stories about why things turned out the way they did. And often we accept these stories as facts.

But the truth is that we don’t know. And we never will.

We’ll never know whether an action we take is the reason that we succeed, or if we succeed in spite of that action. Just like we’ll never know if our failures are caused by our decisions, or if the alternative would’ve been even worse.

We get one life. We get to see how the actions and choices that we make play out, and that’s it.

We don’t have the privilege of seeing how things would’ve turned out if we chose a different college, pursued a different career, or even chose a different friend group.

We make choices and live with the consequences. Sure, we can look back and guess how it would’ve been if we did things differently, but we’ll never know for sure.

Which is perfectly fine.

As long as we don’t pretend to have all the answers when we look back.

-Brandon