The Dangers of Hindsight
Memories can make the past seem more glamorous than it was. Here’s what you need to remember.
I woke up to a grey sky this morning, with rain pounding our tiny balcony and the walls of our bedroom as frigid cold as I’d imagine a Siberian jail cell must be. Luckily, I’d remembered to stash some fluffy socks at the foot of the bed so that tiptoeing down the freezing ceramic tile of the hallway on my way to the bathroom wasn’t such a rude awakening. I thought to myself, as I always do around this time of year, that with all their technological advancement, you’d think Israelis would have figured out how to properly heat (or at least insulate) a building by now.
As I waited for the boiler to heat up and spare me the sting of an icy shower, I muttered under my breath, “They’d never stand for this in Korea.”
(Side note: I know, I know. I’m shaking my own head at myself right now with these first world problems. Honestly, when there are a million people across the globe — some of them right here in Tel Aviv — who would ask for nothing more than to simply have a roof over their heads, it’s pretty silly to be grumbling about ceramic flooring and concrete walls, even if they do equate to bone-chilling cold in the winter. I admit that. Stay with me here, folks.)
Here’s the problem, though: come Israeli summer, with its sun and beach and all the heat you could ever want, you’d better believe I will still find something to gripe about. I will still come up with some reason or other why things were better in a place I used to live.
It’s almost as if — oh, G-d, I can’t believe I’m about to say this — the problem is me. Or at least, hindsight.
Here’s what I mean:
In February of 2016, I was on the homestretch of my almost three-year stint teaching English in South Korea. While I had an awesome group of friends there, both Korean and foreign, I had had it with Korea at the time.
The way that coffee shops left their outside doors open in winter when the heat was on, letting the freezing air blow in.
How my boss would tell me I looked tired and ill on days I didn’t wear makeup.
The pushing and shoving to be first on the subway before the people getting off had even started through the doors.
After almost three years, I was immersed enough in the culture that the fascinating aspects of life abroad had grown dull and the tiny grievances seemed monumental. It wasn’t unlike what starts to happen after you’ve been in a romantic relationship with someone for three years (not that I would know): the honeymoon phase is a thing of the past and the little things can start to grate on your nerves. You’ve got to work to keep things in perspective and focus on the good.
I was on to other things at that stage of my life, though, and I was never able to put this into practice. Now that I’ve been living in Israel for around the amount of time that I lived in Korea, I’m finding myself antsy again. The cultural traits and language quirks I once found endearing are starting to claw at me. I’m missing the heated floors of Korean apartments, longing for the way Koreans dance around topics and hint at what they’re trying to say (a far cry from Israelis, let me tell you). Living in a new country, I’ve got a new set of problems now, and the good things about Korea that weren’t enough to keep me from bellyaching back in 2016 seem altogether delicious these days.
It’s the power of hindsight. It has this inexplicable ability to make things look glamorous.
I sometimes daydream about moving back to Korea, as if simply transporting myself back to Seoul will somehow conjure up all the magic and romance of the time I spent there. The days I wanted to beat my head against the wall and escape from Korea and back to Nebraska are never present in those daydreams, mind you — and there were quite a few of them. No, hindsight sweeps in, waves its magic wand, and sprinkles my memories with rose-tinted pixie dust, making everything in real-time seem grey and dull.
The trick is to catch it.
We’ve got to point the finger at hindsight, catching it in its nice-but-still-misleading optimism and say, “Look, I know you mean well, but that’s not exactly how things went down.”
I’m not suggesting we switch our focus to the negative aspects of times gone by. It’s not like reliving my past frustrations will make the concrete buildings of Tel Aviv any warmer. Rather, it’s important to remember that no matter where we are and what situation we’re in, there will always be something to complain about — this idea of ‘the good old days’ is a ruse that distracts us from the beauty of the present moment.
After all, this moment is the only one we actually have.
This apartment in Tel Aviv is the only apartment I’ve got, and this city is the only one I’m living in at the moment.
I mean, honestly — my guess is that somewhere down the line I’ll be longing for the clean smell of the air after an Israeli rain or the scent of cardamom in coffee, with the complaint of cold tile floors a long forgotten memory.
