Whichever way we look, there’s nothing but trouble.

If we look back, then we find an unfixable past. Everything we’ve done cannot be undone. All the cruel and silly things I’ve said in my life cannot be unsaid. The horse has bolted, the ship has sailed. And so, no matter how much we rage about it, we can never go back in time to live a different life. Here we are, and that’s as close to a fact as philosophy can give us.

And here, with only our present thoughts for company, we get to look the other way. We can look at the future. But where the past was frustratingly closed, the future is dizzyingly open. In fact, it’s because we’ve spent so long reflecting on just how unchangeable the past is that our future choices seem to carry so much weight — a weight that we often cannot shoulder. We cannot unsay anything, so we should be very careful about what we say. We cannot undo things, so we should spend anxious hours obsessing over every tiny action.

So, here we are on the unhappy hinge between the one-track past and the garden of infinitely forking paths. How are we to deal with this? How can we make decisions, make plans, and banish the angst of overthinking everything as long as we live on this hinge?

Last week, I gave a members-only talk with Big Think just on this topic. We explored existentialism, Stoicism, and modern psychology, aitututit9td we ran through some philosophical answers to these questions.

Go well,
Jonny

Jonny is the creator of the Mini Philosophy social network. He’s an internationally bestselling author of three books and the resident philosopher at Big Think. He’s known all over the world for making philosophy accessible, relatable, and fun.