“Life is a game that must be played.” How do you win at this so-called game of life? You don’t, there is no winner or loser in this game of life. Its either you live or you die without fully living. To fully live one must overcome the opponents within themselves. The biggest opponent to your-self is the one inside your head. Over-thinking too much or reflection at the wrong moment can lead to your downfall. Heinrich von Kleist believes that “reflection, or thinking something over, finds its proper moment after rather than before an act.” His opinion stems from the premise that life is essentially a contest with fate. Holding this view sets up everything and every situation as a win/lose situation. He believes that mental exercise at the outset of an action can only serve to cloud the issue or lessen the effectiveness of our emotional responses. My assertion is that there are situations where you can’t think before you act, and that in most, if not all situations, you should contemplate afterwards anyway.
There are instances in life when pre-thinking or reflection before an event is just not possible nor would it be logical. The first that springs to mind is an emergency or potentially dangerous type of situation—an accident for example, where quick thinking and/or quick action is a must. If, say, you are driving down the freeway and someone swerves into your lane or a child runs into the path of your car, it would be insanity at best to ponder what course of action to take or to think, “Now what did the driving manual say to do when this happens?” From a personal experience, in which I was driving and my brakes weren’t working as I was coming up to a stop sign where there was a person crossing the street. At that very moment I had to act quickly, without thinking I drove the car up onto someone’s front yard and into a tree instead of into another human being. In that moment, I didn’t have time to think what my possible options where, I just had to act. The time to reflect would be after this incident as Heinrich von Kleist agrees.
In contrast to his assertion, there are times when you should, as a necessity, think about something before you go into it because some things are too important to treat as a contest. Decisions like buying a car, choosing a college, choosing a mate, etc. should be planned for and not treated lightheartedly. In the instance of the wrestler, I believe he does draw upon prior knowledge and practice before he goes into a meet. For example, as a soccer player, I know what to do in order to be successful in certain situations. I know what the best play to make is and when to make it. That comes from understanding of the game and from playing for 17 years. It also comes from having an open mind and learning as much as you can at practice. Than before you step on to the field, you have to think about what you have learned from practices and previous games and than apply that knowledge to what you as a member of your team on the field must do to ensure a win.
For most situations, I agree that reflecting should come after an action as a means to learning and growing as an individual. For example, in the movie, Fearless, Huo Yuanjia started out arrogant and confident, but throughout the series of horrible events, like the most life changing one, the death of his family, had really affected his character. The years on the farm brought him down to earth a bit. In one scene he is helping with some farm work, and in highly competitive fashion, attempts to get more work done than his fellow co-workers. Of course he rushes and botches the job. He then learns that the workers are happy working at a good pace, not trying to outdo each other and even stopping to enjoy the finer things like a cool mountain breeze that regularly flows through. This seems to be somewhat of a pivot point for Yuanjia’s way of thinking. Even some of his final words in the film are to tell his disciples “not to take revenge” and preaches to compete to learn not to win. It shows how Yuanjia learned, reflected, and changed as a person after his downfall, which soon came to lead to his new uprising. For example in everyday life, say a college student, midterms are coming up and the student thinks she/he doesn’t need to study because they think it will be a piece of cake and they can ace the midterm no problem. Well when the day of midterm comes and she/he is taking a test or writing a paper they realized that they didn’t prepare well enough and she/he fails it. After midterms are over, the student looks back on what she/he had done and reflects on what they could have done better. The student learns from their previous experience and when finals come around she/he becomes the student that stays up all night cramming information and reviewing to ensure a passing grade.
In life, there are situations where you can’t think before you act, and that in most, if not all situations, you should contemplate afterwards anyway. As Heinrich von Kleist believes that every situation is set up as a win/lose situation that is not always the case in life. Life is far too complex to treat each situation as a contest and to put no thought into the consequences of one’s behavior. Each situation must be taken on a case-by-case basis or you are never likely to learn the lessons that life constantly lays before you.