Retrospect and the Rookie

Retrospect is a wonderful thing. Looking at things in the past and having the ability to sum up the actions that led to the consequences is comforting. More difficult is living in and through a situation and having to sort out the consequences of one’s actions without knowing how they’ll pan out.

I tuned through the channels as a I generally do when I am trying to procrastinate something. In this case I was procrastinating studying for my general management and strategy class this Friday. The first scene I stumbled across on AMC was a particularly contentious scene from the movie “The Rookie”. In it Dennis Quaid and Rachel Griffiths were arguing about whether he should take the offer from the Tampa
Bay Rays to join their minor league system. And as I watched the argument it was comforting to watch an obviously difficult unresolved argument in the light of knowing its ultimate resolution. The perspective given by the outcome makes it an
unreality.

So as I sit here, a few days after Griffin’s latest surgery, I wonder if the arguments we have inside our house will have the same comforting look as the right decisions years from now. Will we be right in sending him back to school on Wednesday? Are we making Clare feel like a second-class citizen by not driving her the quarter mile to school as we juggle schedules? Will Katie feel unloved by our lack of attendance at her choir-fest tonight?

I’m not sure. I hope that in retrospect our decisions are remembered as being wise. But I can’t be sure. And more painfully I am not the only one will who will pay if I’m wrong.