Today’s Teacher: Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855)
The Teaching
“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
— Søren Kierkegaard, Journalen (Journals)
Who Was Søren Kierkegaard?
Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and cultural critic—often called the “father of existentialism.” Born in Copenhagen to a wealthy but melancholic family, Kierkegaard lived only 42 years, but in that brief life produced a remarkable body of work exploring anxiety, despair, faith, choice, and what it means to exist as an individual.
His life was marked by profound personal struggles. His father confessed to cursing God as a boy, convinced the family was damned. Kierkegaard was engaged to Regine Olsen, whom he loved deeply, but broke off the engagement believing he was unfit for marriage—a decision that haunted him for the rest of his life. He lived as an outsider, mocked by the Copenhagen press, misunderstood by his contemporaries, and died in relative obscurity.
Yet Kierkegaard understood something crucial about the human condition: we live in constant uncertainty, making choices without knowing their outcomes, only understanding our lives in hindsight—when it’s too late to change them.
His insight cuts to the heart of human existence: You can only understand your life by looking backward at what’s already happened. But you must live it forward, making choices without knowing how they’ll turn out. This creates what he called the “fundamental anxiety” of being human—the necessity of choosing without certainty.
Understanding the Wisdom
“Life Can Only Be Understood Backwards”
Looking backward, everything makes sense:
- You see how that painful breakup led you to your current partner
- You understand how losing that job redirected you to better opportunities
- You recognize how your struggles built the strength you needed later
- You notice patterns you couldn’t see while living through them
- You connect dots that seemed random at the time
Retrospectively, life has narrative coherence. The story makes sense. The pieces fit together. You can trace causes and effects. You can see why things happened as they did.
This is why people say:
- “Everything happens for a reason” (visible only in retrospect)
- “That was the best thing that could have happened” (couldn’t see it at the time)
- “I understand now why that needed to happen” (clarity came later)
But Kierkegaard’s point: This understanding is only available backwards. While you’re living through events, they’re confusing, ambiguous, uncertain. Understanding comes later—too late to inform the decisions you had to make.
“But It Must Be Lived Forwards”
Here’s the problem: You must make choices now, without the benefit of hindsight.
You must decide:
- Which career to pursue (without knowing if it’s right)
- Whether to marry this person (without knowing the future)
- Whether to move to a new city (without knowing the outcome)
- How to raise your children (without knowing how they’ll turn out)
- What values to live by (without certainty you’re right)
You must live forwards into uncertainty.
You don’t get to wait until you understand. You don’t get to see how it turns out before choosing. You must act now, in the midst of confusion, without the clarity that only comes later.
This creates the fundamental human predicament:
- The wisdom you need is in the future (hindsight)
- But the choices you must make are in the present (foresight impossible)
- You need to understand to choose wisely, but you can only understand after you’ve already chosen
The Paradox and Its Anxiety
Kierkegaard identified this as a source of existential anxiety:
We want:
- Certainty before we choose
- Understanding before we commit
- Guaranteed outcomes before we risk
- To know we’re making the right decision
Reality offers:
- Uncertainty when we must choose
- Confusion when we must commit
- Unknown outcomes when we must risk
- Ambiguity when we must decide
This gap between what we want (certainty) and what we have (uncertainty) creates anxiety.
Most people respond to this anxiety in unhealthy ways:
- Paralysis: Refusing to choose because they can’t be certain
- Bad faith: Pretending they have certainty they don’t have
- Blame: Holding external forces responsible for their choices
- Regret: Endlessly second-guessing past decisions with hindsight they didn’t have then
Kierkegaard invites a different response: Accept the paradox. Live courageously into uncertainty. Make choices without certainty. Trust that understanding will come—later.
How to Practice This Wisdom Today
1. Morning Choice-Making Meditation (10 minutes)
Start your day by acknowledging the uncertainty you face and the courage required to choose anyway.
Reflect:
What choice am I facing where I wish I had certainty?
- Career decision
- Relationship question
- Major purchase
- Life direction
- Parenting approach
Notice the desire for certainty: “I want to know this is the right choice before I make it. I want to understand now what I’ll only understand later. I want guarantees about outcomes.”
Acknowledge the impossibility: “I can’t know for certain. I can only understand this choice backwards, after I’ve lived it. But I must choose forwards, now, without that understanding.”
Practice acceptance: “I accept that I must choose without certainty. I cannot have the understanding I want—it only comes later. I will choose with the best wisdom I have now, knowing I’ll understand it better later.”
Make peace with forward living: “Today, I will live forwards into uncertainty. I will choose courageously without demanding guarantees. I will trust that understanding will come—in its own time.”
2. The Hindsight Recognition Practice (Throughout the Day)
Today, notice where you now understand things you couldn’t understand when you were living through them.
Look backward at your life:
Choose a past event that seemed confusing, painful, or meaningless at the time:
- A rejection that hurt
- A failure that devastated you
- A choice that seemed wrong
- A loss that felt senseless
- A period of confusion or struggle
Ask: “What do I understand now that I couldn’t see then?”
- How did this redirect you?
- What did this teach you?
- How did this prepare you?
- What did this reveal?
- How does this make sense now in ways it didn’t then?
Notice the clarity that only came with time: “I couldn’t have understood this while living through it. I can only understand it now, looking backward. The meaning emerged through living it, not before.”
Apply this to current uncertainty: “Just as I couldn’t understand that situation until later, I won’t understand my current situation until I’ve lived through it. That’s okay. That’s how life works.”
This practice builds:
- Trust in the process of living into understanding
- Patience with current confusion
- Faith that meaning emerges through time
- Acceptance of necessary uncertainty
3. Forward Living Practice (Midday)
At midday, practice living forwards despite uncertainty.
When you face a choice and feel paralyzed by lack of certainty:
Notice the pattern: “I’m waiting for certainty before I choose. I want to understand the outcome before I commit. I’m trying to live backwards (understand first) instead of forwards (choose first, understand later).”
Kierkegaard’s reminder: “You cannot understand this until you’ve lived it. You must choose now, without the understanding that only comes later.”
Ask different questions:
Not: “What choice will definitely work out?” But: “What choice aligns with my values and who I’m becoming?”
Not: “How can I be certain this is right?” But: “What does wisdom I have now suggest?”
Not: “What if I’m wrong?” But: “What will I learn either way?”
Then choose: Make a choice. Not because you’re certain. Because you must live forwards. Because understanding comes through living, not before it.
Trust: “I’ll understand this choice better later. For now, I choose with integrity, courage, and the wisdom I currently have. That’s enough.”
4. Evening Reflection: Living Without Knowing (15 minutes)
Before bed, reflect on living forwards into uncertainty.
Journal:
- What did I understand today that I couldn’t understand earlier in my life?
- What hindsight did I gain?
- What now makes sense that didn’t before?
- How does my life look more coherent looking backward?
- What choices did I make today without certainty?
- Where did I live forwards despite uncertainty?
- Where did I act without guaranteed outcomes?
- How did it feel to choose courageously?
- Where am I still demanding certainty before I’ll choose?
- What am I waiting for before I’ll act?
- Am I trying to understand backwards before living forwards?
- What’s the cost of this waiting?
- What choice will I make tomorrow, accepting I won’t understand it until later?
- What can I move forward on?
- What can I choose with current wisdom?
- What can I trust will make sense eventually?
- How can I hold my past choices more gently, knowing I couldn’t understand them at the time?
- Where am I judging past-me for not knowing what only hindsight revealed?
- Where can I offer compassion for choices made in uncertainty?
Kierkegaard’s wisdom: You’re always living forwards without full understanding. That’s not a problem to solve—it’s the human condition to accept and navigate with courage.
A Modern Application: The Career Change Dilemma
Let’s apply Kierkegaard’s wisdom to a common modern struggle: trying to decide whether to make a major career change.
The situation: You’re considering leaving your stable career for something more meaningful but uncertain. You desperately want to know if it’s the “right” choice before you make it. You’re paralyzed by not being able to see the future.
The demand-for-certainty approach:
What you do:
- Endlessly research and analyze
- Create pro/con lists repeatedly
- Seek guarantees from everyone (“Will this work out?”)
- Wait for a “sign” that this is definitely the right choice
- Read every book and article about career transitions
- Talk to dozens of people hoping someone will tell you what to do
- Stay paralyzed for months or years
- Demand to understand the choice before making it
Why: “I need to know this will work out. I need certainty before I commit. I need to understand this is the right choice before I make it.”
What happens: Years pass. You’re still stuck. You gather information but never act. You want to understand backwards (see how it turns out) before living forwards (making the choice). This is impossible. So you stay stuck, increasingly frustrated and regretful about time passing.
The Kierkegaardian approach:
What you recognize: “I want to understand this choice before I make it. But understanding only comes through living it. I can only understand this career change backwards, after I’ve done it. But I must decide forwards, now, without that understanding. This is the human condition—I cannot escape it by waiting.”
What you do:
Step 1 – Accept the paradox: “I will only understand this choice after I’ve lived it. I cannot have certainty now. Waiting for certainty is waiting forever. I must choose in uncertainty.”
Step 2 – Use current wisdom: “I don’t know if this career change will work out. But I do know:
- My current path feels increasingly misaligned with who I’m becoming
- I’m drawn to this new direction in ways that feel significant
- I have skills and capacities that transfer
- I can learn what I don’t yet know
- I’m willing to accept the consequences of this choice”
Step 3 – Make the choice: Not because you’re certain it will work out. Because:
- You must live forwards
- This choice aligns with your deepest values
- Staying requires betraying something important in you
- You trust you’ll learn and adapt whatever happens
- You accept you’ll only understand this decision later
Step 4 – Live into it: Stop second-guessing. Stop demanding retroactive certainty. You’ve chosen. Now live it forward. Pay attention. Learn. Adapt. Trust that understanding will emerge through the living.
Step 5 – Years later, look backward: Eventually, you’ll understand this choice. Maybe it led exactly where you hoped. Maybe it led somewhere unexpected but valuable. Maybe it taught you things you needed to learn. Maybe it revealed that your old path was actually better, and you returned to it with new appreciation.
Whatever happened, you’ll understand it backwards.
But you could only live it forwards—which you did. You chose courageously in uncertainty. You lived your life instead of waiting for guaranteed outcomes.
The outcome:
Both paths involve uncertainty:
- Stay in current career: You’ll wonder “what if?”
- Make the change: You’ll wonder “will this work?”
The difference: One path involves living forwards courageously into chosen uncertainty. The other involves staying paralyzed by fear of uncertainty.
Kierkegaard would say: Both choices involve uncertainty. Choose the one that honors who you’re becoming. Then live it forwards. You’ll understand it backwards—later.
The Deeper Philosophy
Existential Choice
Kierkegaard is considered the father of existentialism because he focused on the experience of existing as a choosing individual.
He understood:
- Existence precedes essence (you make yourself through choices)
- You must choose without foundations (no objective certainty)
- Choice involves anxiety (you’re responsible without guarantees)
- Authenticity requires choosing despite uncertainty
Most philosophical systems before Kierkegaard tried to:
- Give you objective certainty to base choices on
- Remove the anxiety of uncertainty
- Provide guaranteed correct answers
- Eliminate the risk of choosing
Kierkegaard said: That’s impossible. Existence IS uncertainty. Choice IS anxiety. Living IS risk. You cannot escape this by finding the right philosophical system. You must embrace it as the human condition.
The Leap of Faith
Kierkegaard famously wrote about “the leap of faith”—not just in religious contexts, but as the nature of all significant choices.
A leap means:
- You can’t calculate your way to certainty
- You can’t gradually reason your way to safety
- At some point, you must jump into uncertainty
- The ground you land on is only visible after you’ve leaped
This applies to:
- Choosing a life partner (can’t know for certain beforehand)
- Having children (can’t guarantee outcomes)
- Pursuing a calling (can’t know it will work out)
- Committing to values (can’t prove they’re objectively correct)
Life’s important choices are all leaps.
You gather what wisdom you can. Then you leap. You don’t get certainty first. You get understanding later—after you’ve already leaped.
The Danger of Hindsight Bias
Kierkegaard’s teaching also warns against hindsight bias:
Looking backward, we often think: “The choice I made was obviously right (or obviously wrong)” “I should have known better” “Anyone could see what would happen”
But this is an illusion. The clarity you have now looking backward wasn’t available when you were living forwards. You’re judging past-you with information past-you couldn’t have had.
This insight creates:
- Compassion for past self: “I made the best choice I could with what I knew then. I couldn’t understand it until I’d lived it.”
- Humility about current choices: “Future-me will understand this better. Present-me must choose anyway, without that understanding.”
- Patience with others: “They’re living forwards without my hindsight. They can’t know what only their future will reveal.”
Your Practice for Today
Here’s your challenge based on Kierkegaard’s teaching:
Today, practice living forwards courageously despite the uncertainty that only backward understanding can resolve.
The Practice:
Morning (10 minutes):
- Acknowledge a choice you face where you want certainty first: What are you waiting to understand before you’ll commit?
- Accept the paradox: “I can only understand this backwards, after I’ve lived it. But I must choose forwards, now, without that understanding.”
- Ask better questions: Not “How can I be certain?” but “What does my current wisdom suggest? What choice aligns with who I’m becoming?”
- Set intention: “Today, I will live forwards courageously. I will choose without demanding certainty. I will trust understanding will come—later.”
Throughout the day:
Notice where you gain backward understanding:
- What makes sense now that didn’t before?
- What do you understand about your past that you couldn’t see while living it?
Practice forward living:
- When you must choose without certainty, do so with courage
- When you want guarantees, accept you cannot have them
- When you demand to understand first, remember understanding comes through living
Evening (15 minutes):
Reflect:
- What did I understand today that I couldn’t earlier?
- What did I choose despite uncertainty?
- Where am I demanding certainty before I’ll live forwards?
- How can I hold my past choices more gently?
Kierkegaard’s promise: You cannot escape the uncertainty of living forwards. But you can live courageously within it, trusting that understanding emerges through living, not before it.
Essential Reading: Dive Deeper into Søren Kierkegaard
If this teaching resonates with you, explore these books:
Primary Sources (with guidance—Kierkegaard is challenging):
The Essential Kierkegaard edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong
- Best selection of his key writings
- More accessible than full works
- Good editorial guidance
- Perfect starting point
Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard
- His most accessible major work
- On faith, choice, and uncertainty
- Profound and readable
- Good introduction to his thought
The Sickness Unto Death by Søren Kierkegaard
- On despair and authenticity
- More challenging but profound
- For serious students
Accessible Introductions:
How to Live: What the Rule of St. Benedict Teaches Us by Judith Valente (Note: Better recommendation is actually:)
At The Existentialist Café by Sarah Bakewell
- Accessible introduction to existentialism
- Kierkegaard as founding figure
- Readable and engaging
- Great context
Kierkegaard: A Very Short Introduction by Patrick Gardiner
- Concise overview of his thought
- Accessible for beginners
- Good starting point before primary sources
On Living With Uncertainty:
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
- Living fully despite uncertainty
- Eastern approach to Kierkegaardian themes
- Very accessible and practical
- Beautiful writing
Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
- Finding meaning despite uncertainty
- Living forwards without knowing
- Existential approach from Holocaust experience
- Essential reading
The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich
- Courage to exist despite anxiety
- Building on Kierkegaard
- More theological but profound
- For those wanting deeper exploration
The Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh
- Living fully in the present
- Buddhist approach to uncertainty
- Practical and peaceful
- Beautiful complement
Closing Reflection
Søren Kierkegaard lived only 42 years. He spent them wrestling with anxiety, uncertainty, and the terrifying freedom of human choice. He was misunderstood, mocked, and died relatively unknown.
Yet he understood something most people never grasp:
You cannot have the certainty you want before you choose. You can only have the understanding you need after you’ve already lived your choice.
This creates anxiety. This creates the existential predicament of being human.
Most people respond by:
- Refusing to choose (paralysis)
- Pretending they’re certain (bad faith)
- Blaming others for outcomes (avoiding responsibility)
- Regretting past choices with hindsight they didn’t have then (self-torture)
Kierkegaard invites you to:
- Accept uncertainty as unavoidable
- Choose courageously anyway
- Take responsibility for choices made without certainty
- Hold past choices gently, knowing you couldn’t understand then what you understand now
Today, you face choices without certainty:
- You want to understand before you commit
- You want guarantees before you risk
- You want to know it will work out before you try
Kierkegaard’s truth: You cannot have these things. You can only live forwards into uncertainty, trusting that understanding will come backwards—later.
The question is:
Will you stay paralyzed, demanding certainty you cannot have?
Or will you live forwards courageously, making choices with the wisdom you currently possess, accepting you’ll only understand them fully in hindsight?
Life can only be understood backwards.
But it must be lived forwards.
What choice will you make today, even though you won’t fully understand it until later?
Reflection Questions
Take a moment to journal or contemplate:
- What choice am I avoiding because I want certainty first—and what would change if I accepted I’ll only understand it backwards?
- Looking at my past, what do I now understand that I couldn’t see while living through it?
- Where am I judging past-me with hindsight past-me didn’t have—and how can I offer more compassion?
- What would it mean to live forwards courageously today, trusting understanding will come later?
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Essential Reading: 📚 The Essential Kierkegaard – Best selection of his writings 📖 Fear and Trembling – His most accessible major work 🎯 At The Existentialist Café – Accessible introduction to existentialism 💫 The Wisdom of Insecurity – Living fully despite uncertainty
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