Thoughts bigger than oneself

I was on my way to work yesterday and they were talking about an interesting subject on the radio... "If you could go back in time and tell your 18 year old self anything, what would it be?" It ended up just being a discussion on if you could go back to any point in your life sort of thing but it got me thinking...

If I could go back would I?


Sure there are tons of times in my past I'd wished I'd known then what I know now... and at first I thought yeah I'd like to go back to a point in my life and tell my younger self to make a different choice but then I thought more about it...

If I changed just one thing... how would that effect everything that had come after it? My choices effected other people, they effected who I met, my interactions with them... if I changed just one event, I not only would change the course of my life but it would be very possible that I would change the paths of other people too. The weird thing about it is that it sounds selfish and not at the same time. I know I'm not the center of anyone's world but my own, I like it that way... but everything we do, everything we say... every choice we make, either big or small, alters the course of so many other people around us and we don't always realize it... and if we change things people who may have a very happy life now may not in the alternate reality we'd create and vice versa... Yeah we might change someone's life for the better by making a different choice ourselves, but we're just as likely to make someone else's life miserable or make things worse than they were before...

I don't know as I'd be able to shoulder the burden of that... knowing that I'd selfishly changed my life so I'd be happier at the expense of making someone else who'd had a part of my life miserable...

I thought about if I'd gone back to the summer before my senior year of high school... the point where when I think back was pretty much the point that changed the course of my life as I know it so drastically... I'd tell myself how choosing to pursue a relationship with the guy that would be the father of my daughter would turn out... I don't know as I'd make myself pick anything different, just tell myself what happened and let the younger me make the choice again. Honestly I'd like to think that the 16 year old me would make the choice the 29 year old me wishes I'd made then... but I couldn't be sure... I was a different person then... (Yes... I know the thought of this makes many people's heads hurt... even mine from time to time.)

But if I could go back and did... and the 16 year old me decided that it wasn't worth the turmoil that would ensue... what would happen then? Well the friend I took him from may or may not have stayed with him... would it have been her that had ended up in the situations that I did? Maybe, maybe not... but that's a guaranteed 2 lives I would have changed with just changing one decision (Not to mention the lives of the people THEY came into contact with in the years after that point). I most likely would not have lost my virginity that year... and thus not gotten pregnant... and I probably would have gone off to college after graduating... who can really even speculate from there...

I'm pretty sure all the boyfriends I had in the time since then wouldn't have been there... more lives changed...

The friends I made in the days, weeks, and years since then I may not have made and thus wouldn't have introduced to other friends... more lives changed...

And on that, I can't help but think I wouldn't have introduced my best friend to her current husband had things not gone the way they had... and she wouldn't be so miserable now... Yeah there's a part of me that blames myself for that one... I mean I didn't tell her to go out with him (I was actually pretty pissed off when I found out she was... but oh well) and I didn't tell her to marry him or anything but I did introduce them... good things and bad both have to start somewhere...

In the 13 years that have passed since that one choice was made... so much has happened... I've met so many wonderful people and so many not so wonderful people... If I change that one choice, so much changes with it... so many lives change with it in various different degrees...

In the end I couldn't be that selfish... even if I COULD go back and change it, I wouldn't...

The next time someone asks YOU if you would go back and change things... think about it a little while before you answer... you may realize just how many lives you've touched, both good and bad, and realize maybe one choice isn't as insignificant as you think...