What If I Knew Then What I Know Now?

​I hear this often:

"If I had only known then what I know now."

I understand where that comes from. In my younger years I'm sure I said that a lot.

But I don't say it anymore.

Because I have come to know this: almost every meaningful thing I know today - the things I know that are most important to me and deeply engrained in who I am - are things I know because of what I did NOT know back then.

It's a tricky question to wonder about, isn't it? Would my life be more beautiful having not made the many mistakes that I've made, but are the very mistakes that have given me wisdom. Would I trade away my wisdom for the chance to have not made those mistakes?

For me that question isn't tricky at all. Because while my mistakes cost me something, my wisdom has given me everything.

"Wisdom is supreme; therefore get wisdom. Though it cost all you have, get understanding."
(Proverbs 4:7)

"Blessed are those who find wisdom... She is more precious than rubies; nothing you desire can compare with her."
(Proverbs 3:13-15)

I am not here to celebrate my mistakes. Or to wish more of them upon me. But that's not where most of us struggle. We don't over-celebrate our mistakes; we over-lament them.

Our mistakes become a never ending invitation to live in regret.

The only mistakes I lament these days are the ones that taught me nothing. The ones I spent more time crying over than studying. The ones I spent more time beating myself up over than growing myself up over.

I have written several thousand essays over the last decade. Almost all of them have been written because I did not know then what I know now. And God willing, ten years from now I'll still be writing.

Quite likely - about things I do not know now....