What if

Oh I don’t believe in if anymore, it’s an illusion.
No I don’t believe in if anymore, if is for children, building daydreams.
Roger Whittaker
1936 –

I rarely watch football games. They consume too much time for my liking, and I don’t enjoy the emotional roller coaster you experience when you watch a close game. But at this time of year, I do catch parts of some games.

On one recent weekend, I watched small portions of a college game and a professional game, and I couldn’t help noticing a similarity in the commentary. The announcers were constantly discussing “what if” scenarios: if they hadn’t fumbled, if the defense hadn’t incurred a penalty, if the blockers had given the quarterback more time, and so on.

I found it amusing that the announcers kept playing this game. I wanted to talk back and tell them there’s no point in discussing “what if”; the teams can’t change what happened.

Now, you may be wondering what sports commentary has to do with life. In my mind, there’s a significant parallel, because we often act like those announcers. After something happens that we don’t like, we tend to play “what if” games: we review our behavior over and over and speculate on what we could have done to change the outcome.

It’s a waste of time and energy to play “what if” games with past events. We can’t change what’s already happened. Trying to alter the outcome by mentally creating a new response just consumes a lot of time and energy.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t learn from the past; we must learn from our mistakes if we’re going to improve. But trying to alter the outcome of a past event is a waste of time. And yet, to some extent, we all engage in this activity.

I think we can learn a great lesson from the sports announcers. The outcome of the football game won’t change no matter how many “what if” observations are made, and the same is true of life.

Your life is a result of the choices you made and the actions you took based on those choices. If you make a poor choice, the best approach is to admit it, accept it, and commit to future improvement. Dwelling on it won’t help you do better in future.

Monday morning quarterbacking is a popular activity in football season, but second-guessing life choices happens year-round. Don’t fall into that trap; learn to accept what’s happened and deal with it. Because unless we embrace reality, we’ll be stuck in a world of illusions.

The illusion that times were better than those that are, has probably pervaded all ages.
Horace Greeley
1811 – 1872