“It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards.”Søren Kierkegaard · Jurnale · 1850 · 1843
Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.
The paradox is existential: understanding requires perspective, and perspective requires lived time. When we choose, we do not yet have the meaning; when we have the meaning, the choice was made long ago. The mechanism is the temporal asymmetry of consciousness — we live in the present, we understand in the past. A concrete example: a career change that seemed a mistake proves, years later, to be exactly what led to a better life.
If meaning only arrives looking back, then living forward demands a strange skill: acting without knowing why it matters yet. Kierkegaard offers no recipes, but a stance — committing to a decision as a promise made to a future you cannot see. Think of a parent reading to a child every evening. No single night feels decisive. Only years later does the meaning of that routine become visible. The question that follows: how do you choose well when meaning is absent now?
Why it matters Practical comfort for any uncertain decision: you do not need to understand now; meaning appears only in retrospect.