Taking it on the chin

They say that the difficult part of keeping a secret is not the actual keeping of the secret, but once the secret is revealed, not to let it be known that you knew all along. When somebody fails while they are trying to do something courageous, we can admire and say, Good effort. But when somebody fails at a relationship or a venture that we told them was bound to fail from the start, and they persisted in spite of our – perhaps wise advice, the temptation to ‘I told you so’ is, even if only internally, almost irresistible. However ‘objectively’ stupid or shortsighted the act, it was that person’s own and as long as the person takes responsibility for the consequences - alone, as they took the chance - alone, maybe we should cut them some slack. Life doesn’t mean we need to always make the correct or even sensible choices: Life only demands from you the strength you possess. Only one feat is possible - not to have run away. Dag Hammarskjold (1905 - 1961)