How to deal with afterthoughts
*Yesterday when I spoke to my neighbour, I forgot to mention that the brownies he offered last time were delicious. The other day, when the UberEats guy told me to “enjoy your meal”, I said “you too" instead of thanking him. Two days later, I waved at a woman who was waving at someone else.* I also remember the countless times I have self-sabotaged my image by speaking when I should have kept quiet, and kept quiet when it was in my interest to speak up. Guess how critical I was of myself? God, I’m the epitome of awkwardness and imperfection blended together.
Is it just me? Or do you frequently get yourself into ordinarily embarrassing situations as well? When it happens, do you blame yourself for all the things you said, all the things you shouldn’t have said, all the things your friend thought you could have said, and all the things your family thought you should have said…
There is an infinite list of possibilities, if you ever want to immerse yourself in worry. But here’s the hard truth. Unless you are a perfect human being, you will face many such awkward moments in your life. And all the conversation in your head about the best thing you could have said and done? They are merely afterthoughts or knowledge you are privy to only in hindsight.
Afterthoughts give you the impression that you somehow didn’t do your best. That you didn’t see the complete picture. Or you should have been more observant and turned the tide in your favour.
Here is an exercise for you. Imagine you are walking into a room to negotiate your pay with your employer. You have with you an invisible friend walking into the room beside you. Only you can see her. Her name is “AT”. You enter the room and make your case for a pay rise. After you have spoken, you look around to see if AT had left. She is so quiet. But no, she is there all along, seated next to you, listening and observing to what you both say.
AT now has something that you don’t have - she has a synopsis of what just happened as a third party present in the room. Now guess what AT would do? As soon as you exit the room, she will start speaking to you - being critical of what you just said. “Why did you not mention your significant role in your last assignment? you need to promote yourself” “You should have asked more time to think about it” “Why did you interrupt when she was talking - that was terrible” “Why did you compromise and not ask for a bigger raise?”.
But unlike AT, you didn’t have the knowledge of how things were going to unfold when you entered the room. You had to act in real time when all your invisible friend had to do was to sit and observe, quietly. You had little time to process when the conversation did not go the way you planned. This was why you didn’t come up with the wittiest things you could have said.
Do you realise that we ourselves, and those in our close circle often play the role of the invisible friend? Your mind coming up with better things you could have said or done - or your family and friends who tell you why you didn’t do this instead of that - are your invisible friends who were not there with you when it unfolded. But they now know the right thing to say because they are aware of all that just happened and had the time to comprehend it, unlike you.
So this is the thing about an afterthought - it’s an illusion. It is composed of knowledge that is possible only in hindsight. It makes you believe you didn’t do your best when that’s all you could have possibly done in that moment.
How afterthought works is an important reminder to be kind to ourselves after we make mistakes. None of us are perfect. They are also reminders not to take yourself too seriously when you have awkward moments. In important situations, afterthoughts are lessons that you would want to write in a journal - so that you know what to do, when a similar opportunity strikes again.