Wednesday, September 10, 2008

The "Duh" Factor

Ever have one of those moments when everything becomes painfully clear as to how you could have handled something or said something better or made a better decision? I seem to be having those a lot lately and have dubbed them my "Duh" moments.

Typically, "Duh" moments or the "Duh" factor leaves me feeling very irritated with myself or with a knot in my gut. My mind gets wrapped around various things that start with "If I had only done..." or "Maybe if I had been..". And, of course, the best one of all - "Why did I not see that???"

I like to think of myself as a fairly bright individual, with the ability to tell right from wrong and that sort of thing. However, it seems that when it comes to common sense, I seem to be lacking. I think I just must not pay enough attention to life or something, because I can look back on it later and everything is crystal clear.

But isn't that how life is? I mean, it's really hard to see clearly the choices we make in the present; as soon as the present becomes the past, though, it is perfectly clear to see where we went wrong.

For example, I spent the last year of my high school life not really caring if I made good grades or not. As embarassing as it is to say, the only thing on my mind for the longest time was a boy I know. (I'm human, okay? Anyone who hasn't done this is lying.) As soon as I graduated, though, and got to looking at my grades and overall GPA, I was horrified. The whole "Duh" factor swept in, leaving me with the browbeating of "If only I had applied myself...", "If only I had stopped worrying about this and that...", and "Man, I am really dumb at times..."

The thing I have to remember is that looking back, I can't do anything about the past. The past will always be the past and there is nothing we can do about it. All we can do is take the time we are in, the here and the now, and do our best with it. We can't correct our mistakes, but we can learn from them and try not to make them again. And even if we do, and we will continually screw up because we are human, we have to remind ourselves that it will be okay. Everything will be okay, no matter what.

Don't let the "Duh" factor trip you up.

1 comment:

mark said...

We certainly all have some of those 'DUH' moments. Enjoyed the commentary.