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Guest Post – #Life – I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now! by D.G. Kaye | Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Reblog

Published on by dgkaye

Sally Cronin has been running a wonderful series – I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now, at her Smorgasbord Blog Magazine. There have been some fantastic entries by several writers and bloggers that many of us here know. I urge you to check out a few

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I am sure like me, there have been times when you have wondered what difference might have been made to your life, if your younger self had been gifted with the experience and knowledge you have accumulated over the years.

I invited several friends from the writing community to share their thoughts on this subject which I am sure you will enjoy as much as I did.

Today my friend and fellow collaborator here on Smorgasbord, D.G. Kaye (Debby Gies) shares her thoughts on the prompt.

I Wish I Knew Then by Debby Gies

Thank you, Sally for inviting me here today to share my thoughts on, I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now. This was an interesting question because of course, hindsight is always 20/20.

I’ve lived my life learning from life – life lessons. These are experiences in life that we could never imagine until we’ve lived through them, that’s why they’re called life lessons. This makes it somewhat like a trick question because if we didn’t experience something yet, we’d have never been able to learn from it, so hence, that’s my answer, it’s really not possible to know then what we know now, but wish, yes. We didn’t know any better or different then that nothing is stagnant, the world is always changing. We followed in the direction that life led us, we experienced and then we learned.

Don’t we all wish that in some of our most glorious times in our heydays, that we knew then that those days could quite possibly become some of the best years of our lives? Did we take those days for granted? Did we think that the good times would always continue to roll unknowing the times would change and quite possibly there may be leaner years? I know that I just took it for granted that the good things would remain and continue to get better. I wish I knew that our accumulated abundance in life was never anything to take for granted, that nothing is permanent, and that we should always keep alert and protective over everything we’d worked hard to attain.

But I suppose back then, as we live in the now and endure new struggles, we didn’t consider that those days of past would become the very days we often long for in the now as this world becomes more difficult to exist in.

I wish I knew, what feels like not so long ago, that I was living in my glory days without struggles of today – not much to worry about, giving not much concern to the coming years, which ultimately became leaner and less. Less tolerance, less love, less acceptance, less understanding, less brotherly love and that it could possibly become more difficult to live with the lesser of these things taken for granted back then as we under-estimated change in the world, thinking life would get even better with progress instead of going backwards.

I wish I knew then that my thinking that the harder we worked and saved for our retirement years would undoubtedly add fruit to our baskets if we saved and invested smart like the generation before us, was no guarantee and offered a false sense of security.

I wish I knew then as we thought we were prepared with our future plans and our false sense of security that the ‘powers that be’ would be making the rich get richer, and big corporations and greed would become as powerful as governments while diminishing the middle class’s ability to stay afloat ( let alone those who already lived back then, and still, in poverty levels) and could possibly threaten our financial futures, and that flying high in the gravy days by no means was any guarantee for tomorrow’s riches.

But as I watch the world change and devolve in so many ways, I can look back on the errors of my ways and I’ve learned to adjust my sails and go with the wind and not against it while keeping my eyes wide open, so I don’t have to say in the future again – I wish I knew then. But, no doubts, I may quite possibly be fooled again and have to repeat those same words – I Wish I Knew Then.

Please continue reading at Sally’s Smorgasbord

Source: Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Guest Post – #Life – I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now! by D.G. Kaye | Smorgasbord Blog Magazine

©DGKaye2022

41 thoughts on “Guest Post – #Life – I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now! by D.G. Kaye | Smorgasbord Blog Magazine – Reblog”

  1. I could have bought 25 acres of land for around $125000. I didn’t because back then single women could not get a bank loan. It’s worth several million now but still in the middle of nowhere. What you learn…buy something even if it’s not exactly what you want.

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    1. Hi Dezzie, oh how I agree. Buying land back then was the biggest prize for the future. I remember decades ago people were buying parking lots and thinking, what’s so great about that. Hindsight! 🙂

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  4. Fascinating post, Debby. Planning seems sensible, but often the best-laid plans of mice and men go right out of the window. All we can do is try and then go with the flow, sometimes g=fighting against it just exhausts, disappoints, and leads to unhappiness. Keep the joy, seize the day. We are but leaves briefly fluttering in the wind. xx

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  5. I left a comment on Sally’s blog, Debby. And I agree with you. It’s a wonderful series, and it seems everybody has a different take on the subject. Stay well.

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  11. This has been one of my favorite of Sally’s series. It is interesting how many of us have experienced similar challenges growing up.

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  13. I wonder how many of us have said that over the years lol… And I wonder too if we would have made the same choices along our pathway..
    But here we all are, regardless, and each choice, each detour.. Led us to be here in the now..
    And without those choices I dare say we wouldn’t be who we are today..
    So in hindsight.. I guess I would do it all again.. 😀 perhaps with a tweak here and there LOL.. ❤
    Great post and entry Debby.. ❤

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  14. Keeping your eyes wide open…that’s a good way to go forward, Debby. At times, I am so discouraged at the selfishness and stupidity of some people. I just try to keep them out of my little orbit.

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  15. Excellent lessons to be learned from the past! Those glory days did not prepare many of us for the current harsh realities. I read your poem on Sally’s blog as well (and wrote a comment). Ah, the good old days! 🙂

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  16. As you say, looking back is always 20/20. For me, I think I’m more a ‘wish I was’ than a ‘wish I knew’. Patience is high on the list. Kinder is too. I’d need to give it more thought. Thanks for helping me think about it.

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