So here’s the premise:
You find a magic pill that would, if you took it, make you go to sleep and wake up at any point in your past that you choose. You would be the younger version of yourself, but you would retain all of the knowledge and memory of your experiences. In effect, it would give you the opportunity to go back and have a “do-over.”
Let’s say you were even allowed to magically bring back a “Little Black Book” with notes on stocks to invest in, flights to avoid, etc.
Would you do it? How many years would you go back? What would you try to change? Would you make an effort to “gather up” the important people in your current life again? Would you marry the same person? Do the same job? Live the same place?
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Do you have to stay there or can you go back and fix a mistake and then jump back into your current life?
Oh hell yes! In a heartbeat.
After thinking it over, the hardest part would be choosing the when. I would work harder at keeping people in my life who have slipped away. With the advantage of the little black book there’s no way I’d work much less at the miserable jobs I’ve had. I think I would live to travel… living in different places for three to five years and move on. Or I would be a professional student.
The hardest thing to give up would be technology. I can’t imagine life without computers anymore. Online research at the flip of a switch 24/7? How did we ever survive without it? Hey, I took typing at BHS on a manual typewriter!
As much as I’d like to have a complete redo (I mean there are events in elementary school I’d handle differently!) I think I’d choose 1985. That way I’d still have my kids, computers wouldn’t be too far away, and I’d still be young enough to enjoy the new improved version of my life. And hopefully be more rigorous about taking care of my health!
What about you? Would YOU? And if so, when?
I will post what I would do shortly.
Wow, what a question. There’s the whole sovereignity of God issue and if this hadn’t happened, would I have done this? If you believe God has and was working in your life, do you really want to change it?
You know the whole Star Trek thing about not changing history!
HEY CINDY!
It’s fantastic to see you commenting on the blog, thanks!
As to your point, as a person with no religious belief, the God thing wouldn’t be an issue for me. Very interesting to see you combine Star Trek and God into one paragraph, though! 🙂
I don’t think you have to look around much in the world to see that God is either not guiding anything, or else He’s an unfeeling, feckless thug. Where was his “guiding hand” during the Holocaust, or during the early days of the AIDS epidemic? There’s simply no possible justification, be it “free will” or “mysterious ways” that justifies such wholesale suffering.
The story’s not over yet…
I would go back to my freshman year in college, NOT study music and drama but study fine art and jewelry design. I would take business courses and maybe even gotten a teaching degree. I would still have studied music but just for fun. I have so much more confidence now that if I had had that then, who knows where I would be now.
My only caveat is that I might never have met Ray, Diana, Andy, Matt, Gail, and my husband, Selva. And that would have been tragic. I might never have had my son, Pir. I cant stand the thought of that for one second.
So thanks Ray. Having gone full circle I think I am happier with my choices than I thought I was. I can always go back and get that degree and I am already designing jewelry. Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.
Thanks for using the word “feckless” – we love that word around here, especially when we watch CNN.