The Slow Burn: Rearview Mirrors

A funny thing happens when you spend enough time staring at the smoke.

The conversation gets quieter. Your mind starts wandering down old roads.

Every now and then, I find myself drifting into the land of what could have been. Not because I want to live there, but because it's familiar territory. A place littered with old decisions, missed opportunities, and alternate endings.

Maybe you know the place.

It's where the business idea you never pursued became someone else's million-dollar company.

It's where the relationship you should've fought for still occasionally crosses your mind.

It's where the investment you passed on became a success story.

It's where the words you wish you'd said….and the ones you wish you could take back…live rent-free.

It's where the road forks, and somehow the path you didn't take always looks smoother.

The older I get, the more I realize most of us carry around a version of this place.

My wife has a saying: What's personal is universal.

In other words, if you've experienced it, chances are somebody else has too.

I've spent enough evenings on back porches, in cigar lounges, and around campfires to know that's true. Give people enough time, enough trust, and a good cigar, and eventually the masks come off. The stories start coming out.

The regrets.

The near misses.

The opportunities that slipped through their fingers.

The moments they wish they could replay.

For some of us, it's a business decision.

For others, it's a relationship.

For a few, it's much heavier than that.

The first drink.

The first pill.

The first compromise.

The moment everything changed.

The list is endless.

So is the amount of energy we spend replaying it.

The problem is that none of us own a time machine.

No amount of overthinking can rewrite a conversation from ten years ago. No amount of wishing can undo a mistake. No amount of regret can alter a single second of the past.

And yet we keep returning to it.

I know I do.

There are chapters of my story I would've gladly skipped. Seasons marked by addiction, financial uncertainty, pride, fear, and more mistakes than I'd care to admit. There are opportunities I missed and opportunities I chased that never should've mattered in the first place.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking:

If only I would've...

If only I hadn't...

If only I knew then what I know now...

But every minute spent living in the rearview mirror is a minute I'm not paying attention to the windshield.

And that's where life is happening.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that gratitude and regret cannot occupy the same space for very long. One eventually wins.

When I'm consumed by what could have been, I become blind to what is.

I miss the blessings sitting right in front of me.

The wife across the table.

The friend beside me.

The cigar in my hand.

The opportunity hidden inside today's challenges.

The ordinary moments that will one day become the memories I wish I could revisit.

Scripture puts it this way:

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing..."
— Isaiah 43:18-19

I love that phrase: See, I am doing a new thing.

Not I did a thing.

Not I will eventually do a thing.

I am doing a new thing.

Present tense.

Right now.

The challenge is that we often become so focused on yesterday that we miss what God is doing today.

I've done it more times than I can count.

The irony is that many of the things I once worried about never happened. And many of the blessings I enjoy today arrived through roads I never would've chosen for myself.

That's a humbling realization.

Because it reminds me that control is mostly an illusion.

We don't control outcomes.

We don't control timing.

We don't control the past.

What we do control is where we place our attention.

We can choose to stay stuck in a story that has already been written.

Or we can lean into the chapter we're living right now.

One of the reasons I love cigars is that they force me to slow down long enough to remember that.

A cigar doesn't care about your five-year plan.

It doesn't care about the deal you missed.

It doesn't care about the mistake you made in 2012.

It simply asks you to sit down, be present, and pay attention.

To the people around you.

To the conversation in front of you.

To the moment you're living.

Maybe that's why some of the best conversations happen around a shared smoke.

For a little while, we stop obsessing over what could have been and start appreciating what is.

And maybe that's enough.

Because the Gospel isn't a story about what we could've done differently.

It's a story about what Jesus has already done.

The weight of if only begins to lose its grip when we realize our hope was never found in getting every decision right.

Our hope is found in grace.

And grace has a way of turning dead ends into new beginnings.

So if you're carrying around a few what-could-have-beens today, welcome to the club.

We've all got them.

Just don't stare so long into the rearview mirror that you miss the road ahead.

Light Up & Lean In.

There's still plenty of the journey left.