It's been a long time since I wrote a blog which is weird as you would think I would have more time now that school has finished - but my apologies any-who. In this blog I want to discuss our usage of the phrase "I told you so" and the idea that maybe there is no point to it's existence and it's not really making any difference; just creating pain for someone else.
Recently I went to Cornwall with my best friend and her family and it was absolutely lovely, great weather and scenery; we just didn't want to leave. One day we decided to relax on the beach but there was a slight breeze so I underestimated greatly the intensity of the sun that day, so I didn't put on sunscreen. You can probably guess the rest - I fell asleep in the sun and got terribly sunburnt. Now - I knew that I should have put sunscreen on when I felt the pain of my sunburn and had my friend laugh at me, I learnt that lesson. However, I was still met with an wave of "I told you so's" and this is when I realized that saying I told you so to someone isn't as benefiting as we may think it is. You see - what really is the point in telling someone what they have should have done when they already know? They are suffering from their mistake, the only thing you're doing by saying this is reminding them over and over again what they have done wrong. It makes people feel worse. Once someone has made a mistake and have realized what they have done all they really want to do it move and on and forget it. Personally, they will have learnt from it because they can feel the emotional and sometimes physical pain from their mistake and that is the biggest encouragement for learning. We just can't go back after making these mistakes; we just have to accept that as a fact - so what's the point in discussing over and over what would have happened when that just can't happen anymore. I couldn't rewind back the day and put on sunscreen and the more and more I was reminding that that is what I should have done, the more I got angry and upset. Think about how many times someone will go over the alternative situation in their head - different words they could of said or actions they could have took, without you reminding them?
Furthermore, what do we gain by saying "hey I told you so"? To know that in their situation we would have made the right decision? Sometimes the alternative decision wouldn't have been any better - I know my example is bad but maybe if I had put sunscreen on I will still have got burnt, maybe not as dire but still burnt. In that case, why should be forced to feel bad for something that would have had the same outcome either way? Mistakes we make involving other people; maybe we didn't say something we should have said until it was too late. Would it have made a difference if we had said it on time? We can't ever predict someone else's emotions right? Maybe we could argue that - if we had said it on time or made a different decision then the chance for a better outcome would have been there but the fact of the matter is - we can't have the glimpse of a better outcome anymore as the decision had been made so we need to move on. There is no point reminiscing over the decision when there is nothing we can do anymore. So saying "I told you so" isn't going to make the situation any brighter.
We could also argue that saying "I told you so" would have future benefits meaning that they will learn from their mistake but like I said before if someone has made a decision that lead to a bad outcome they probably have already learnt from that mistake for future preferences. I am not saying that this is correct for everyone because of course it isn't but the majority of people who have suffered from something will learn. From now on I will always wear sunscreen even in slight breezes - lesson learnt. The person I was saying "I told you so" to will in the future never leave words left unsaid for the chance of that brighter outcome. All they really needed in that time of need was a hug and for me to say "it's okay, you didn't know and neither did I" because no one can predict the future, but we can have a pretty good guess. All I needed was someone to tell me my burn didn't look so bad and it would go away soon. Instead of making ourselves feel better on someone else's mistake, we should try and be a bit more sympathetic because if we were in their shoes we would want the same thing and I can guarantee the situation would still be the same and I suppose we'd be telling ourselves "I told you so."
But in the end we always get what we want. Every bad decision to the next will finally lead to our future and a period of time when we are happy and everything we have ever done or said we won't regret because it lead us to have everything we have in that moment. I got a tan in the end - I had to go through a lot of pain and lesson learning to get one but I have one now. One day we'll be happy and have everything we could have ever asked for and sometimes even better all due to the bad decisions we make now. So why should we worry about the people who are telling us what we should have done when what we should have done wouldn't have lead to who we are today? They never ever told us so...we told them so with our bad decisions and stupid mistakes.
You've got to take a few trips to finally reach the sun.
Happy Holidays. (However I do strongly recommend wearing sunscreen)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
September 2017
|