I I only get one, I don’t think I would change anything. I’m not sure if it would disrupt the fine balance constructed by all the bad decisions I made that has lead to my currrent life. If I could change several, that’s a different story . . .
I would not take the offer. Yes, there are mistakes I have made in my life, but I learned from them. And I couldn’t bear to think of a present where I wasn’t where I am, with the person I am with, and being the person that I am.
According to the Many Worlds Theory, we’ve all already had the opportunity to make every possible decision at every possible decision-point, and furthermore, we’ve all in fact made every possible decision, bifurcating the universe into multiple child universes at each turn.
Those universes are all out there, and always have been, and you’re already living out all your lives, one in each. There’s nothing left for you to choose, because you’ve already chosen them all.
Before opening this thread, I already knew what it would look like: People changing a small piece of the puzzle of their lives. The college major. The date in high school. The job application. Rearranging one item or other in the box that is their lives, but still keeping the box. Guess what? Change that one thing, and I can tell you that, from my perspective out here, your lives aren’t much different. You’re still the same people. You have still have the same box. You’re just hung up on some detail or other.
Well, fuck. My problem is different. I can change any part of the box, and it won’t matter. Screw it. The box isn’t working. I need a completely new box.
Thing is, that doesn’t seem to come down to any choice I ever made, although it’s somehow still all my fault. Hey, I’m not blaming anyone else or skirting responsibility. I just can’t answer the question, because “go back to age five and do it all over” doesn’t really work as an answer.
Stay in New York.
Definitely wouldn’t have gotten married. I would have so much more money today.
Star Trek TNG had an episode with this scenario, “Tapestry.” Short version: in the present, Picard is going to die because his artifical heart was damaged by an attack that his original heart (destroyed in a fight much earlier in his life) would have survived. A god-like being offers him the chance to relive that earlier incident, choosing a safer course of action that results in his original heart being undamaged, enabling survival of the present-day incident. His new risk-averse choices echo throughout his new life, and back in the present he finds he is not a starship captain - he’s just an astronomer, a nice, safe (but unfulfilling, for him) occupation.
Similar to your scenario, he retains full awareness of both timelines, and is allowed to choose in the end. He opts to revert back to his original life, and somehow manages to survive the present-day attack.
And that last bit is key:
If we are allowed not just to reverse a past choice, but also to compare the outcomes after the same length of time, why would we not choose to fully explore both paths? Seems like a no-brainer:
If both paths turn out awesome, I win, because either way, I’ll end up with an awesome life.
If the alternate path turns out to be more awesome than my original path, I win because I’ll end up with an awesome life.
If the alternate path turns out worse, then I stick with my original life, and I haven’t lost anything.
If both paths are shitty, well, I still haven’t lost anything; the Universe has simply decided to shit on me no matter what, and I have an opportunity to decide which flavor I want.
This provision, while initially seeming like a safety net, actually seems like it would bring the most horrific consequences: having to choose between two sets of children. One set you get to keep, the other gets blinked into non-existence. I guess not retaining the memory of annihilating my alternate universe family is a sop, but I’d rather not have that experience at all.
I would’ve ignored computers and gone to medical school. I really screwed the pooch in career choice.
I don’t know about that, though. Things like college majors or choosing not to enter into a relationship can open the door to entirely new possibilities, which could then lead to personal changes - dieting, behavioral modifications, etc.
Are you saying that a person who opted to move to New York to pursue a job in finance would essentially be the same as a person who decided to stay in Austin and work on his music career?
Mine is small, and entirely about satisfying a particular curiosity. During my sophomore year of college - say it with me if you knew it was coming - there was this girl. I really liked her; she was tremendously attractive but also, we had all the things in common. I had a vague sense that she was interested in me, but she had a boyfriend and I was 19 years old and what the hell did I know about these things or how to handle them?
There was a night when the girl, and I, and a third friend were hanging out in the common room of her dorm, talking and doing college student things. At some point after midnight, the girl decided to go to bed. A few minutes later, I went to the bathroom, and on my way back to the common room, I walked past her room.
This time, I’d knock.
Sorry another education-related one. I would have gone to a proper high school instead of thinking I was too smart to fail at everyone-fails-shitty-high-school. That was the start of the whole shitstorm.
Well put. I know that if I could go back in time and prevent Young Dung from doing one stupid thing, she’d have just turned around and done a different stupid thing.
That said… the time I put my hair in a ponytail and hacked the ponytail off? I really wish I wouldn’t have done that. :smack:
As someone who is strongly considering entering an IT field, can you elaborate?
“You’re nuts. No way are we getting back together.”
I’d also switch majors, from English/History to Chemistry. I was really good at science and I loved it, but I didn’t want to go to college and I was just trying to pick the easiest path for me.
Hmm. Maybe I’ll back up further. I should never have gone to Notre Dame, even though that’s what my father hoped for.
I only have five candidates that really jump to mind, but I’m not so sure about any of them.
The first, though, is hard to classify as a decision. I mean, I decided to go into college in a field that turned out to be a bad choice, so I never finished that degree and ultimately went in a new direction. If I could tell myself to go become an accountant from day one, I’d be 10 years ahead in my career and would have saved a lot of money and frustration. But… I don’t know, is that allowed under the rules. Going into accounting was never one of the decision I had even considered. I just didn’t understand enough about the profession for it to show up on my radar.
The second was when my parents were getting divorced, all of us kids were asked if we wanted to live with one parent or another. I think for all of us, the thought process was: “Mom, definitely. But if I say that Dad will be pissed. So I’ll say we want to split time equally.” Since my mother died two years later (and not through a decision of mine, so I can’t reverse that event using this fantastical device), I suppose our choice was probably the best. My father was still a bastard, but I can’t imagine any good coming from telling him the truth about anything.
The third and fourth relate to a girlfriend from high school (who I did not stay with) and my wife (who I did stay with). I’m not sure I chose wrong in either case… but it would be fascinating to see my alternate life even if I had no real intent to change.
The fifth choice would be to not do something that I did when I was young. I don’t really think doing it changed my life, except maybe in shaping my personality, but it was a bad thing to have done and it’d be nice to take it back.
Everybody tells me that I am one of the smartest people they’ve ever met. My mistake was trying to make other people happy even though I knew they were absolutely wrong, and in the face of all evidence to the contrary, doing what other people told me to do. I’ve also known this for over 20 years, but I didn’t decide to take action until this year.
If I could go back in time, I would have decided to take control of my life earlier.
I can’t think of any. I could have chosen a different college and my life would have been far different, but I don’t think it’d be better. A few years ago, I would have changed a decision that I thought was responsible for the breakup of my first marriage, but I now know it wouldn’t have made any difference.
Maybe when I gave up writing when I got my first rejection slip. It slowed down my writing career for about seven years.
Pay more up front for the house and get a larger one already made rather than buy a smaller one and remodel/expand.