This is a post I originally had over on the awesome Stuart R. West's blog (have you read any of his recent releases? They are absolutely worth picking up!), but I thought I'd post one here today, just for fun. Shout it out in the comments about what you would go back and change!
So, time travel.
Let’s be honest: if it were easily available, most of us would use it for
trivial things: To fix that gaff in the staff meeting yesterday, to make sure
you didn’t actually give someone a vacuum for Christmas (even if they asked for
one), or just to make sure you had enough time to finish your taxes. I mean,
really, the little stuff would be a whole lot easier. And that little stuff
probably wouldn’t change much in the grand scheme of your life.
But, there are
other things we might change. Like, the big stuff. The regret-at-night-before-falling-asleep
kind of stuff. We’ve all got those kinds of things lurking, just waiting to be
remembered when we’re laying in bed, about to fall asleep (wait, we do all have
those, right? I’m not the only one?....Right?). Anyhow, I am pretty sure we could
all come up with a few of those things we might change. For me, I can think of
a few: not rooming with the crazy girl during my Junior year of college. Not
listening to certain people who said I shouldn’t take more writing classes
because I should stick to my strengths in science. Not doing that really
awesome genetics internship in Peru (ugh, I so wish I’d had the guts to do
that!). So, yeah, lots of things I’d probably do differently.
Of course, the
bigger changes mean lots of other things would be different, too. I’d never
have met really influential people on my life. Never gotten my current job that
I adore. Never have ended up in my field. Or something like that. Who knows,
right? For me, that’s kind of the fun the whole time-travel thing: imagining
what would be different. Sometimes it might be better. Other times, maybe
worse. It’s hard to say because of how many things influence us, but it’s still
interesting to imagine.
Though I still
wish I’d done that internship. Hello, what was my dumb 18-year-old self
thinking? Or not thinking…
You gotta love hindsight! Doesn't it stink that it takes maturity to look back and see all the things you'd do different? I wanted to have my head on straight back then! ;)
ReplyDelete18 year olds... of course now you know none of us is fully developed at that age. It's a wonder we survive!
ReplyDeleteI wonder why we don't trust our 18 year old children to make their own decisions now? Probably with hindsight we know the mistakes we made and opportunities we missed.
ReplyDeleteI would go back in time and make sure Justin Bieber's dad got himself a vasectomy before the Biebs was conceived.
ReplyDeleteHave you ever seen The Butterfly Effect? I think that's how it would be. You'd go back and change something about your past, then come back to the present and realize something bad had happened as a result. Like that you're married to the "one that got away," but you lost both of your legs in a horrible boating accident or something.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post! I can totally relate to your regret- but you are right. Things may have ended up very differently. Who knows what changes would have occurred if you had gone. Always interesting to think about though.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Meradeth. *sigh* What would I go back and change? I know I should say "nothing. Life is the way it should be..." but...I would change a lot of my high school decisions. LOL ;)
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