Hindsight is the best teacher. When hindsight comes, it is only after some thing has been done, after a decision has been made, then hindsight comes to aid in your reflection of said decision. Hindsight is neither positive or negative, hindsight is "you" reflecting on informative.
Human Beings decide, choose, and label things positive and negative. Such definitions help in making future decisions. If one has labeled something as Pos/Neg then when approached by something similar in the future, one has a clearer understanding of it and how to handle it.
Humans come to those conclusions with the use of reflection, which is the friend and close companion of hindsight (the ability to see backward).
Although, I believe that positive and negative labels are used all too frequently, without restraint, and far too many biased. I do understand and acknowledge their uses. So, it is with their usefulness in mind, that I will label two directions "Life" (the living force that enables all things to exist) can take positive or negative. But first, I think we need to understand how it is we come to the conclusion of what is pos/neg.
Imagine everything you've come to understand, believe, and know stored in a hard drive (a really big hard drive). This hard drive is connected to a computer, this computer has the speed and capability to analyze all the information you've provided it (on the hard drive) within less than a second. It can then use that info it analyzed to decide whether you'd like or dislike something (whether you've responded positively or negatively to that stimuli in the past and thus should respond positively or negatively now).
Now imagine that this computer is you. KA-BOOM, POW!!! Now we have a better understanding (very basic but for our situation it works fine) of how we come to these conclusions of what should be labeled as pos/neg.
Now let's talk about decisions and how they might be affecting your future endeavors. One could probably argue that there are varying degrees of decisions. Ranging from the small to the large scale decisions we make on a daily basis. From what to eat for breakfast, to whether you should offer your controversial opinion at a business meeting.
Decisions can also affect a person in many different ways as well, physically, emotionally, mentally, financially... The list could go on. The point is that all those ways your decisions can affect you are very important to your life.
Your decisions can also affect others too, and in contrast others decisions can have an affect on you. With the varying range of people (with varying backgrounds, experiences, understanding, knowledge, beliefs and perceptions) you can see how the decisions of a world full of different individuals can result in a ginormous web of cause/effect/affect, which can have interesting and at times scary results
*/**.
So, if decisions affect oneself and others, one has to have a way to label effect of such decisions. Hence the the topic of pos/neg. Now if one makes a decision that oneself has labeled positive, it propels that individual into the future (whatever happens next, after the decision) a future I'd label as positive, because when given a chance to choose between pos/neg (your own definition of pos/neg) you the individual chose positive.
Over time, if you continue to make choices/decisions that were similar in nature to the hypothetical one we just mentioned, it would serve to reinforce that positive label attached to it and it would become easier and easier to make that decision in the future.
I'd like to take a moment to define what I believe to be easy and difficulty. Something easy is something you are familiar with and something difficult is something you are not familiar with.
So, with that in mind, if you consistently make a decision that you've labeled as positive (say for example; cooking dinner instead of eating fast food), it will become easier to make that decision in the future. You will be more familiar with that choice, and the consistent choosing of this option in the place of the other will help to reinforce its positivity within you.
In direct contrast, if one chooses in a manner that directly conflicts with the pos/neg labels in oneself, it can have similar affects. For example, if you decide to eat out instead of cooking dinner, the next time you have to make that decision, it'll be easier to make that negative decision than it would have in the previous encounter with it. (lets just assume the sake of this example that this was the first time the individual had encountered the decision to eat out or cook dinner. So, first they chose positive now negative, essentially making it even ground). They are more familiar with it.
Now say the decision comes up again, and again they choose to eat out. And again, and again. After time (not sure how much) it will become easier to choose to eat out, than it would to cook dinner.
Also, given an amount of time, to consistently choose eating out instead of cooking dinner, the negative label on such an activity would soon loosen it's hold and over a substantial amount of time even diminish. Then the possibility that an positive label could be placed on the same thing that was once a negative label now exists.
With that in mind, one can see how one could find reason, to how another person could in fact do horrible things to other people. Killing, rape, torture, etc. This fact does not negate the degree of negativity attached to such behaviors to others, but to the individual committing them it does. They are in fact still negative actions, it is the person involved that has changed the way he/she sees the action performed.
But just as one has learned to be a certain way, can one not unlearn it? If an individual has learned to act negatively instead of positive, can he not learn to act positively?
You can teach an old dog new tricks.
With all that being said, I'd like to come full circle and connect all these pieces with the original thought that I began writing this with.
Hindsight is the ability to see the decisions of the past.
Positive and Negative (or good and bad) are labels we learn to attach to things through our experience/life/knowledge, etc
Decisions affect oneself and others and can be considered as both positive and negative
Consistent decisions reinforce, consistent behavior (positive or negative) and form habits (ie consistent behavior)
Which brings me to my point, it is the utmost importance that our young ones are receive the proper set of labels (morals, values, habits, etc) when they are growing up. If this is not the case, they will receive them from somewhere else and you can be the judge as to the Positive of Negative label to attach to that scenario.
*Side Note*
Good thing we have this beautiful thing called communication (although under utilized). I would say that as a medium to convey, thought and emotion/feeling it is extremely lacking. I've spent an hour typing (with some breaks to text, Google words I couldn't spell, and look on Wikipedia) in an effort to convey a thought that crossed my mind. Granted it's something I've mulled over before and holds great interest for me...
Regardless, communication methods need improvement, although I've come to an understanding that video has the best means to express information yet. As it can stimulate practically all of the sensory receptors of the audience.
**Side Note 2**
It was a thought that dreams are the language the mind uses to better understand and communicate with the "self." That thought needs more deliberation and contemplation, but I wanted to throw it out there.
