20/40 hindsight... and issues of honesty and perception

random intro story:
i was at the snohomish county prosecutor's office most of the afternoon last thursday for work, and while i was there some of my co-workers had a bit of a disagreement about whether 20/40 vision is better or worse than 20/20; the consensus was that it is indeed worse and actually something like 20/15 would be better.

just some thoughts:
i have often heard the phrase "20/20 hindsight" used to illustrate the fact that the way you judge things in hindsight is based off a more correct and clear view of a situation than you could ever have when you're actually in the thick of things; moreover, often we beat ourselves up for things we wish we had done differently, when to be fair we did the best we could with the information available and we ought not fault ourselves too much.

a few months ago i was talking to a friend about my then mostly-finalized decision to quit law school. he said that it was funny that before i said all kinds of positive things about it, but as soon as i decided to quit i had all these negative things to say. i think this illustrates a similar phenomenon, like when you rant and rave about how wonderful your significant other is, until they break up with you and then you can't stop talking about what a horrible person they are and how terribly they treated you.

either of these seems to be an issue of the subjectivity with which we view ourselves and the events of our lives. it is therefore interesting to have other people to notice the differences and give us a more objective record of our thoughts, or at least the things that we express. frankly, sometimes i think the issue isn't that our subjective perceptions change that much, but rather that we tailor them to others to try and control their perceptions of us...

getting more to the point:
although there has been some change in my viewpoints which led me to law school and then back away from it, i don't think that my actual thoughts and feelings changed as much as there has been a change in which parts i choose to share with others. when i was deciding to go i played up the positives, and when i decided to leave i played up the negatives, and although i may have been trying just a little to convince myself that i was doing the right thing, i think a lot of it was just out of sheer defensiveness towards others. i'm inclined to feel a little dishonest about that. not that i went around lying to people, but because i generally am the type of person who kind of wears their heart on their sleeve and shares ideas and opinions rather readily. but, when it comes to major life decisions, i'm more inclined to share a lot of the real details of my feelings for the people who are actually close to me, and sort of put out the canned political speech for everyone else.

the real deal(for those of you who want a bit of the real story behind the madness):
i graduated from byu and spent the next year playing manager at jamba because i couldn't seem to get any of the "real" jobs to work out. i was feeling a little stagnant, and i was in provo and had been there for quite a few years and was feeling a little bit old and useless, and decided that if i was going to keep getting older and feeling more single-r that i may as well resign myself to the single life and go do something that would be of use to the world or society or whatnot instead of just waiting around in provo and ending up a 50-year-old librarian at the HBLL. (i never planned that as a career, but my mom had an old roommate who ended up that way and my dad was afraid that if i didn't get out i'd be next... thanks for the vote of confidence pops...)

so, the lsat seemed fun cuz i'm a nerd and i did okay even though i didn't study and was offered like 4-5 scholarships at schools around the country, and that seemed a lot better than being the jamba-queen forever (even though i was pretty good at it). honestly, though, i hadn't really resigned myself to the single life after all. when it comes right down to it i never wanted to be a lawyer, and as much as i want to make a difference in the world, what that usually boils down to is that i want to get married and have babies. i try not to say that because i know it's scary. especially to boys. and if i scare them away then i'm just making things worse for myself. but $100k in loans from law school isn't gonna get me married either, and paying them off by myself would probably use up the rest of my good childbearing years, and then even if i did get married...well...honestly i look down that road and things look pretty bleak.

yep, you got it. all that stuff about not wanting to be a lawyer, and all the money, and all of the negative things i said about school and spokane and needing to get away from there and the ex and bad memories, yadda-yadda... some of that's true, but a lot of it is just part of the canned speech...

so, here i am free and on the prowl. unfortunately i've never been very good at prowling. so, i may just be back where i started...but at least i got out of provo, so i can tell my dad not to worry about the HBLL track. and if i end up an old maid anyway...well, there's no way to tell now, so i'll deal with that kind of hindsight when i get there...

and really, i felt good about the decision to go to spokane, and about the decision to go to seattle...so, when it comes right down to it even the old maid or not thing is somewhat superficial. mostly, i'm just trying to go where heavenly father wants me to go, and no matter what happens, as long as i do that it will be okay. because doing what's right is the best way to be happy, no matter what any kind of hindsight may say.