Measures of happiness and satisfaction are subjective states of mind. This is what I try to remind myself when I am feeling wistful and longing.
A relevant folktale: http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/japan.html#stonecutter
What If You Could Do It All Over?
71–80 of 460 posts
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#72You can't, so don't bother thinking about it. You can make changes today that will pay dividends in 10 years, so maybe focus on that instead. I was widowed pretty young (as widowers go), so I have done my share of playing the what-if game with the past. Ultimately it is not a productive exercise, and I try not to do it. If I catch myself dwelling in unlived lives, I try to refocus on the one still in front of me.
I tell any young adult who will listen the mistakes I made. It's nice when they stop by with stories and whiskey the days before Christmas and see them come up strong, happy, and on a solid path towards success. It's only through the stories of our mistakes that we can escape the clutches of time.
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#73I used to think like this, but then I saw the Star Trek TNG episode Tapestry [1] where the premise is much like this question. Picard accepts Q's offer to relive his life, and it turns out that even the negative things in Picard's life help to shape the good qualities he has.
I consider my life to be much the similar: even the negative things or the things I wish would change have helped shape qualities that I would not give away.
[1]: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Tapestry_(episode)
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#74World economic domination by foreseen stock booms/crashes etc...
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#75This reminds me of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, which has a quote Aziz Ansari used in his series “Master of None”: > "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor,…
Excellent break down of the concept by Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto ( 9:18 );
Jordan Peterson Pick Your Sacrifice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5--W9mhC4zA
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#76The best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The second best is now.
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#77> Unfortunately, the ways of men are such that we cannot truly be ourselves. How strange, that the very thing which makes us human, makes us so anti-human, and yet… In that case, is our anti-human-ness not also the most human thing possible? Never did I think it would pay to make such bad decisions, and never did I think that, had I made better decisions, I might have been worse off. Perhaps the very things that put me here are the challenges God has set out for me to face, and that means that I am right where I should be, and I always have been all along!
> So what is there to do? Should I adopt a strategy of total non-action, of being a passive observer to my thoughts and my bodily emotions and my neuroses? Should I somehow elevate myself to a point beyond my own mind, where I am exposed to fewer neuroses?
> No… I am in a checkmate, a cosmic checkmate. And the only thing to do is to do what I can as best I can, and hope the rest of my life may continue unfazed.
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#78This reminds me of “The Bell Jar” by Sylvia Plath, which has a quote Aziz Ansari used in his series “Master of None”: > "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor,…
That book contains some the finest writing ever done in the English language. Her ability to capture emotions and present them in detail-perfect images is breathtaking.
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#79You can't, so don't bother thinking about it. You can make changes today that will pay dividends in 10 years, so maybe focus on that instead. I was widowed pretty young (as widowers go), so I have done my share of playing the what-if game with the past. Ultimately it is not a productive exercise, and I try not to do it. If I catch myself dwelling in unlived lives, I try to refocus on the one still in front of me.
> You can make changes today that will pay dividends in 10 years, so maybe focus on that instead. Exactly this. No matter what your imagined and real futures turn out to be, the good ones all require effort and investment in the present. You can’t go wrong with making investments in your life now.
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. - Chinese Proverb
Re: What If You Could Do It All Over?
#80Many people would say that if you do it all over it would end up exactly the same.