While I was taking my premeditated “morning meditative walk” with my son and my rescue pitbull, Penny, today, we stumbled-upon two off-leash, un-tagged dogs roaming around our neighborhood.
This got me thinking about being in the “right place at the right time.”
If I hadn’t decided on a whim to “do our workaday walk backwards” by turning right (as opposed to our likely left) while leaving the driveway, I wouldn’t have been the one who stumbled upon these freed fidos.
Who knows what could have or would have happened to these doggies without my immediate intervention?
They could have been hit by a car…
They could have been taken-in and adopted by someone else….
or they could have still (despite my intervention) have gotten home safely…
There’s no way to know!
There’s literally no way to truly know whether my seemingly small decision to turn right at the end of my driveway and to immediately intervene was what impacted the future destiny of these doggos.
I’ve thought alot about “seemingly small” choices and how they affect my life and my “destiny” since losing my daughter, Quinn.
I’m fairly sure that this is common among people who have experienced a great tragedy.
“How did my decisions affect the outcome of this situation or would it have happened or turned out the same despite my decisions” were common thoughts that used to circle in my mind…
There was a time when I would go over and over every single solitary detail & decision I remember making in the weeks that lead up to my daughter’s death.
“Was it because I ate this?
Was it because I didn’t do that?
What if I had went to the hospital sooner?”
There is no way of knowing whether my “seemingly small decisions” actually added up to her passing or whether it was already set in the stars that it was going to happen the way it did- despite my decisions.
One of the thoughts that helps me not to dwell in the past is that I tell myself with conviction and certainty that “I made the best decisions with the best knowledge and the best tools I had at the time.”
Because it’s true.
Hindsight is 20 / 20, but in the heat of the moment, you’re making decisions based on your current knowledge and your current set of gathered life experiences.
There was no way for me to know that Quinn was going to die. 
There wasn’t a single indication in my or my midwife’s mind that I had any reason to doubt myself or do anything differently.
There was also no way of knowing that doing something in my everyday life differently would have (maybe) given my mind solace later, when I was looking back, after she had passed.
(In fact, I’m willing to bet that even if I had done things totally differently, that any decision which preceded a perceived negative outcome would have still left me questioning!)
I now know (a little over 2 years later) with certainty that I did everything I knew to do and made my decisions with the best knowledge that I had in that moment. There’s no way of knowing in advance how our “seemingly small” decisions are going to effect the grand scheme of our lives.
“No amount of regret can change the past and no amount of anxiety can change the future.”
So when I find myself in a cyclone of circling thoughts, I steady myself, take a deep, drawn out breath and repeat, “I am making decisions to the best of my ability and based on the knowledge that I have at this time.”
(Saying daily positive affirmations has truly changed my life for the better.
“I am” is one of the most powerful, life changing statements you can make!)
Maybe after the fact I may feel like I could have or should have done something differently, but there’s no use punishing myself for something that I had no way of knowing until after the fact.
Would those dogs have gotten hit by a car if I hadn’t gotten them home when I did?
Maybe.
Would Quinn have still died if I had gotten to the hospital an hour before I had?
Perhaps.
The key is knowing that we’re making our decisions, with the best intentions and with the information that we have gathered up until and in the current moment we’re making them.
Plus, there is no true way of knowing whether our outcomes are already set in stone, despite our daily decisions.
So go forth with confidence knowing that you’re making or have made your decisions based on the person you are or were in the moment you made them, and not based on who you will be or what you will know in the future! (You don’t have that knowledge yet!)
You shouldn’t be punishing yourself for something you didn’t know or couldn’t have known at the time! ( And hey! If it turns out it’s all already set in the stars – there’s nothing you could have don’t differently to effect the outcome anyway! 😉 )
Oh, and just in case you’re wondering about the “doggie details” and what happened with those freed fidos from the beginning of my story….
I just so happened to have stumbled upon one of the same dogs (Izzy the Jack Russell) running loose a few weeks ago! She didn’t have a tag, but when I was holding her and a neighbor drove by, I asked if she knew whose dog she was and the neighbor told me her name was Izzy and showed me where she lived! So when I saw Izzy (and another dog with the same type of & tagless collar) running loose, I already knew where she and her furry brother belonged!
It was the logistics of getting my excited, baking dog home, two unleashed dogs to follow me home for leashes & then getting them back to their home that was the challenge…
SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave
