You’re unlikely to ever know the optimal route ahead. Just as you are unlikely to ever discover how your ’what if’ moments would have turned out. It depends on millions of actions, reactions and further ripples in your life and others.
Your tastes, perspectives and priorities can change. Whether it is due to time, age, company, awareness or some other matter, how you perceive things can adjust. This can be only slightly or a complete 180 degrees. Some people even do a 360 degree change. Just ask anyone who has divorced someone only to remarry them again later.
Life is such an exact and detailed process. Changing one tiny little thing, on a long trajectory, can land you in such a different place. This idea has been explored in so many different ways. One that springs to mind, as I am in London, is the movie Sliding Doors.
Often people will reflect back on their What If moment and decide everything would be the same, except that one thing better. Rarely do people think they would have died, been poorer, or been in any other less well off situation.
This type of thinking can easily lead back to the expectation versus reality gap. By exaggerating the heightened expectation against an unchangeable reality, you are likely to feel a slight depression. So don’t do that. We won’t ever know, because it depends.
Assume life would have been worse in any other scenario. If you want change, start now, not in the past.
Your Thinking...