What If You Could Do It All Over?

Did you mean ruminating?

>As far as I'm concerned until the day I die I don't have a second to waste on things I can't change anyway.

This is the real ticket to happiness imo. Once you realize there are just an enumerable amount of things you cannot directly change and start thinking "Why am I so angry about this?" you eventually learn to be happy.

I always consider my life is strange. Born in a 3rd world country in a broken home, families fight like in drama, many divorces and remarriage. I went where whoever my current father at that time went, moving from city to city, school to school. Then I find myself in the US, from odd jobs such as dry clean, laundry, sushi, deli, to church admin, to now working as SWE in one of big US tech company in NYC. Married a wife from another country as well. Me and my wife are different culturally, language, faith, and socio-economic background. One day I woke up in a remote village where her grandparents cultivate rice, in a traditional home and where the bathtub is still traditional, hearing the sound of cicadas and see the morning sun, and I thought to myself "how did I end up here?"

It's strange, I left my home country and now wherever I go I see people that speaks different language than me, buildings that I'm not familiar with. My community where I am active with is also different than me. It is a strange feeling. I hate airports because whenever I am in airports I always have a mixed feeling. The feeling of leaving my current place to visit another home in another place.

Now my heart is in three different countries (or cities, to be precise). Every vacation season I have to decide which country to visit and to which family. Life is short. I saw my brother's baby, and then on the next vacation that baby already knew how to walk. My parents and grandparents are getting older. My kids and my brother's kids will speak different languages, grow up differently, and so does my wife's kids with her sisters'. I have a dream of uniting them in one place during vacation and see how those kids react to one another even though they can't communicate in one language, I think that'd be a hilarious sight but very wholesome. I hope there will be faster way to travel invented within our lifetime, maybe Concorde again?

I guess this is the life of immigrants. We are immigrants, this is our way of life. I often asked myself what would happen if I stayed in my home country? I'd marry my current girlfriend at that time, maybe help my family's business, or do something else. I don't know.

For anyone curious: I was born and grew up in Jakarta (Indonesia), and my wife grew up in Tokyo (Japan), and now I work in NYC. Life is surely strange. I feel very insignificant every time I think about this and I realize, there are millions, and billions of people in this planet with stories as unique or more unique than me. The world is is a strange place.

One day, maybe we will retire in Japan, or in Indonesia. Who knows. It's too far in the future. What I do now is cherish every moment I have, knowing the future will be different.

I think about that episode a lot in perspective of my life. I actually lived my life like Picard reliving his life. What really hit home was when he was transported back to the present and was questioned Troi and Riker about getting into command. They pretty much laughed at him. To me that really opened my eyes about who I am as a person. I liked being wise even young that it almost has created a retroactive effect my future prospects simply because of it. I've often been told "are you an old man?" by many adults when I was younger and in hindsight now I understand why. However I find it very stupid that human culture (or just western values) find that as a negative. For some reason were supposed to waste our youth and engage in risky behaviors. I just never saw it that way.

I propose a synthesis: hell is having your arm broken with a baseball bat by the best possible version of yourself.