I would have insisted on getting divorced 10 years ago instead of this year, if, as things turned out, it was inevitable. For both our sakes.
I’d change what I ate for lunch from pizza to a hamburger.
Every mistake and shitty decision I made along the way was a learning experience. And I ended up living with a really great partner in a really great area. I’d never do anything to jeopardize that.
I would chose not to get married. Or not to get divorced.
I would have to say more than changing decisions that I made I would rather have made more decisions about things I let slide.
I had one horrible decision many years ago, that if I went back and reversed, would change something wonderful in my life now. So, do I go back and right the wrong?
I’m happy there’s no invention that would make me have to chose.
If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.
I just thought about that for too long, and blood came shooting out of my nose. :mad:
It would be tempting to go back in time and pursue the girl I could have had in college and not the one I wanted to have. But I wouldn’t do it- that timeline would possibly have led to different children. Then at the end I’d have to choose between the children I have now and those I would have had in the alternate universe.
My life has been pretty happy, so I can only think of two (neither of which would likely have large effects on my subsequent life):
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I’d have been an English major instead of a Political Science major in college. In my current job (technical writer for a software company) the English degree would be more relevant, so it wouldn’t have changed my job.
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I’d have encouraged my father to set up a living trust. I’m going through a bunch of probate hassle right now that all could have been avoided if he’d done that. Because he made some other decisions that indicated he wanted to make things easy for me when he passed on, I doubt he’d have objected. I just don’t think he ever thought to do it, and I didn’t know any better.
Other than that, I wouldn’t change anything because of the risk of it messing up something much more positive in my life.
I have no desire to give up my current life, as I’m extremely happy with where I am with marriage and such, which as others have pointed out, are a product of what I’ve been through. But if I were going to evaluate a different course in life, I’d have forced myself to try out for the baseball team in high school. I realize that sounds kind of trite, but so much of my teens and 20s were based on a complete lack of self-confidence (including the decision to get involved with my first wife). I’d be curious to see what would have happened if I’d really pushed myself and been a lot more comfortable with who I was as I was approaching adulthood.
I would go back and change my answer when my grandmother asked me if I wanted to inherit her money or her house when she died. I told her I just didn’t want her to die. She never changed her will and my mom got both. She blew the money without paying for her funeral, and I ended up buying the house from her. It will be paid off in another twenty years. Again.
If I could change my answer, I would have said, “The house.”
Late 1987, I would not listen to my mother and, instead, buy those shares.
When I was 18 and working in a restaurant, I had a customer offer to pay for my college. I told him I was proud I was working my way through and would do it on my own. 6 months later I ended up taking a second job, and 3 months later quitting school.
I would accept that offer and drop to part time at work instead of dropping school.
Immediately after grad school I would have moved to a city where I had better career opportunities. Instead I stayed in the same city (partly because of a relationship which has since ended) and got stuck in a miserable job. I would never make that mistake again.
I wouldn’t have taken any of my dad’s crap and I would’ve somehow tried to find an older girl/ young woman that I looked up to who could’ve been somewhat of a mentor for me.
Nope, it’d take more than fixing one crappy decision, for sure.
Mind you, there was this woman… But isn’t there always?
Your user name is well-chosen. That was - evocative.
For me, I share the fear of changing one thing and that changing everything - different wife, different family, etc. If I could put that aside, either
[ul][li]Change my major in college. I found out that people will pay you to play with computers, later. [/li][li]When I was sixteen, I was deciding where to put my savings. My dad recommended a mutual fund, but I wanted to buy a particular stock. I took his advice. About six years later, I went back and checked. Had I done what I wanted to, and just re-invested the ROI in the same stock, I would have been a millionaire. [/ul][/li]
Regards,
Shodan
This. It’s taken going down a lot of roads to get to a point where I’m fundamentally happy with my life. Nuts to having to go through that again, even if it gets me back to the same place or an even better one.
Not to mention, suppose I go a few decades back, have a very different life with a different wife and kids that I absolutely love. So I get up to the present - and I have to choose which family I’m never going to see or even remember ever again: the family I have now, or the family I’ll have in Timeline B.
Really screw that.
Not to mention, what happens to my loved ones in the timeline I reject? Do I bifurcate in that timeline, so that a Me-2 keeps on living that life, while I continue down the other timeline? Or does one of my families suddenly have their husband and father vanish from existence?
Or does that timeline just come to an end when I decide it’s the second-best choice?
Back in 1987, when I was in a bit of a down period, as a bit of escapism I started writing a SF novel where I jump back in time to my senior year of high school. The novel didn’t get very far - it foundered on these sorts of questions. I never was able to come up with a resolution that I was at all happy with.
There’s a scene in “The Razor’s Edge” where a character remembers turning down marrying the love of her life because he only made $2,000/year. She married someone with better prospects, the Depression hit and she wound up living on $2,000/year with a guy she didn’t love.
I wanted to be a writer, but everyone insisted it was nigh on impossible to make much money at it, so I went with Accounting. Not long after graduation I quit my hated first job and made the discovery that really, I don’t need a lot of money.
I would have gone back to work much earlier after the birth of my children. I enjoyed being a stay-at-home-mom for such a long time, but it’s REALLY hard to get back into the work force after a 10 year break from it.