"Yesterday I drove my son to work and, since we arrived early, we sat in the car and chatted. I'm not sure how we got onto the topic, but quite quickly, we began discussing the idea that the things people do are always the best they can do given who they are, what they know, and the circumstances they find themselves in."
"To be honest, I've always been somewhat dismissive of the idea. I mean, really? Even when I goof up, I'm doing my best? And if everything we do is always our best on every occasion, then, so what? What more is there to discuss? Our conversation in the car, however, went in a direction I hadn't considered before, and I enjoyed the opportunity to learn more about my son's perspective."
"You're always looking back, though, from where you are now with all the learnings and experiences you have accumulated. You're not reviewing that past situation from the perspective of the you you were then. In Daniel Kahneman's (2011) fabulous book Thinking, Fast and Slow, he explains that "Memories are all we get to keep from our experience of living, and the only perspective that we can adopt as we think about our lives is therefore that of the remembering self.""
A father drove his son to work and, while waiting, they conversed about whether people's actions are always the best they can do given who they are, what they know, and the circumstances they face. Hindsight appears misleading because later reflections use new learnings and the remembering self's perspective. Decisions made at the time reflected the agent's knowledge and constraints then, so alternative choices seen in retrospect were not available in that moment. The idea extends to the judgment that even choosing not to try fully can be the best decision possible under specific conditions.
Read at Psychology Today
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