Day 35: If I Could Do It All Again

If I could redo my life or parts of my life, would I?

I think about it in different scenarios with different parameters, like different rules of time travels because I am watching a different movie. Would I do things differently? I guess the answer to that question for anyone will depend on if you are happy with your status in life. And that will not depend on actual status. Happiness is the balance between expectations and reality.

Here is the rule for this scenario:

You don’t have all the knowledge you have now, but you have the wisdom.

Knowledge is what we “know” about the world and our memories. Wisdom is the intuition we possess and have honed because of all of our physical and emotional experiences. I.e., you wouldn’t have your brain but you would have your heart.

Personally, if I had to do it all over again, I would. What a wonderfully different life I may lead because of the confidence and empathy that I would have as a child. So many people lose their confidence at a young age because of the defense mechanisms we build to guard ourselves. And we all have to learn to be kind and empathetic. It is rare to see a non-destructive, albeit mostly harmless, kid or teenager. It is part of growing up. Being able to skip those hard developmental phases would be a huge relief. I could spend those years being productive and enjoying life as a young person to the fullest.

I’m am not saying that if I had a button I could push right now that I would do it. As I said, the answer to this question will typically rely on the opinion of satisfaction. And at the moment I am very happy with life. Sure, there are many things that I wish I could have not done or said, but that is all part of life and learning. If we didn’t make mistakes we wouldn’t learn.

To what end is all of this learning? Who knows. And I really want to meet Who. He or she seems to be the only one capable of understanding life. Har, har.

If I really wanted to go back and change things, it would only be the small things. I would be kinder to people. I would kill fewer bugs and animals. I would find all the tiny ways I could help others.

And if I had to go back and do it all again from scratch, I would. Theoretically, I could be doing that now. This could all just be another try at the same life.

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Author's Note #1: If I had all my knowledge and wisdom, I probably would write tomorrow's post.