Life is lived forwards but can only be understood backwards

Paraphrasing a bit but heard a great life lesson the other day: A guy stops and asks someone for directions. The guy giving the directions says: keep going the way you're going and you will come to a narrow bridge with Dave's restaurant on the left. The road you want is on the left about half a mile before that. The guy crossed the bridge and started watching but didn't come to the road. He eventually repeated the directions to himself and realized the error. As he was driving back the way he came to find the road he thought to himself how similar it was to life: Many times we don't know know which way we're supposed to choose until we're already past the road.