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eftychia: Me in kilt and poofy shirt, facing away, playing acoustic guitar behind head (Default)
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Parallel Universes

posted by [personal profile] eftychia at 02:35pm on 2005-02-15

The older I get, the more I find myself wishing for "do-overs" -- to go back and re-live sections of my past doing things differently...

...But it's not because of regret for the choices I made then; it's dissatisfaction with having had to only make one choice. I don't want to undo what I've done; I want to go back and do the other things in addition to what I did do, learning what I learned from what I did and tacking on what I would have learned from what I might have done instead. Accomplishing goals that I had set aside for other goals.

(And I'm kind of wondering how many people will give me an Ugol on this.)

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There are 11 comments on this entry. (Reply.)
 

(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] merde.livejournal.com at 07:46pm on 2005-02-15
you know, it's funny, i was wondering the other day what i'd do if i had a time machine. whether i'd go back and change anything in my own life. and i thought: no, i wouldn't want to do that. because i like who i am now -- i'm not satisfied with who i am, mind you, and i feel like i have a long way to go -- but if i changed anything in my own life, i might not be the same person i am now. and i like this person.

of course, it is a shame i can't go back and somehow get myself to be more athletic as a child...
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posted by [identity profile] juuro.livejournal.com at 08:05pm on 2005-02-15
I find I agree. After I got far enough over the thirty-year-mark I have been more and more living today.
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posted by [identity profile] merde.livejournal.com at 08:36pm on 2005-02-15
ah, living today -- that's the holy grail, isn't it? i'm still trying to get there. i have moments of being solidly in the here and now, but it never lasts me very long. i'm always looking ahead to the worst possible outcome and plotting my strategy for how to deal with it. or looking back and feeling angry and upset that the past is poisoning my present.

eventually i'll get the hang of thursdays.
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posted by [identity profile] en-ki.livejournal.com at 07:55pm on 2005-02-15
It occurs to me that this is a good perspective to have, but it isn't my usual perspective. I tend to have regrets at the things I missed and fail to consider what I gained from what I did instead.
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posted by [identity profile] wouldyoueva.livejournal.com at 07:58pm on 2005-02-15
I have both regrets about decisions I made (but then, other good things wouldn't have happened as a result of the decisions I made), and longing for seeing what would have happened if, say, I had picked Bob instead of Jack. I think it means you're better adjusted than most of us.

Ugol?
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posted by [identity profile] alyxyn.livejournal.com at 01:46am on 2005-02-16
Ugol's Law which was, I think, promulagated on the pre-porn-spam Usenet newsgroup alt.sex.bondage: If you ever ask "am I the only one who has this kink?" the answer is invariably "no". It's been somewhat generisized to If you ever ask "am I the only one who?", the answer is invariably "no".

As for me—yeah, I wouldn't mind a do-over, if it meant that I were diagnosed at the beginning of my life with chronic depression and ADD. It would have saved me a lot of misery.
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posted by [identity profile] aliza250.livejournal.com at 10:05am on 2005-02-16
... or just some guardian angel to come talk to me, and tell me "There's a problem in your brain chemistry that's causing you to do and feel these things. Hang on, in a few years they'll invent drugs that will help with that."
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] juuro.livejournal.com at 08:07pm on 2005-02-15
Sort of no, sort of yes.

I regret the opportunities not taken. However, the me is the integrated result of the universe over time, and the older I become, the more I live in today. I think a little of tomorrow, less of yesterday, and mostly I just live.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] jim-p.livejournal.com at 10:31pm on 2005-02-15
I want a different kind of do-over. Recent pshrinkage and introspection has revealed that I literally wasn't myself in my younger years. I kept suppressing myself and my own self-interests in order to be convenient, be a good little boy... in short to be what everyone else wanted me to be rather than who I really was.

So, in the most literal and fundamental sense of the word, I want to go back, because I was never there in the first place.
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] aliza250.livejournal.com at 10:03am on 2005-02-16
[Ugol]
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] aliza250.livejournal.com at 10:14am on 2005-02-16
The really big do-overs, though, things like
- telling Aethelstan to *always* wear his seatbelt
- telling Mike to buy a newer car with airbags and crumple zones, even if it meant that he had to buy an equivalent one for his wife in the divorce settlement
- pushing my dad off the chair he was standing on, so that he hurts his shoulder, goes to the doctor, gets talked into a full physical, and gets the pre-cancerous polyp snipped out (Oh, wait. That one actually happened. He thinks G-d pushed him off the chair.)

... those aren't learning experiences so much as just painful ones.
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