Back to the Future
In Back to the Future, Part 2, Marty McFly inadvertently alters the course of history and created a dystopian version of the 1985 that he lives in. In trying to explain what the heck is going on, Doc Brown draws a line on a chalkboard. "Think of time as a straight line," he explains. He draws another line that forks off of the main line in the middle and eventually runs parallel with the main one. "At some point in the past, something happened to divert the flow of time, resulting in an alternate version of the 1985 you remember." (I'm quoting here, but that might not be exactly what he said. I'm trying not to get sued.)
It looked something like this:
I've met a lot of people who are, in their minds, living in one version of 1985, and spend an awful lot of time wondering what life is like in the other 1985. A few years ago I was talking with a friend of mine, who was lamenting (while drunk) about how much time he had spent drinking in his younger days. He now wondered: if he hadn't drank so much when he was 20, could he have accomplished more?
I'd like to point out to the reader: we were both 25 years old at the time.
I'm sorry, but if you're 25, you don't get to look back on your life and wonder where the time went. You don't get to point to past mistakes as having inevitably changed the course of your life to the extent that you're blocked from accomplishing anything. I don't even think you get to act this way to when your 55, or 65.
In the chart above, we're all living in 1955. We're at the fork in the road, and the best part is: there are more than two paths. As a matter of fact, there aren't even paths laid out for you already. They might be there in your brain, but that's a matter of perception. You get to draw your own if you want.
I met a 46-year-old guy about six months ago who said something similar: "If I hadn't drank for the past 20 years, what could I have done?"
Easy to view this kind of attitude as silly, but how much time do you spend worrying about what could have been instead of what could be?
It looked something like this:
I've met a lot of people who are, in their minds, living in one version of 1985, and spend an awful lot of time wondering what life is like in the other 1985. A few years ago I was talking with a friend of mine, who was lamenting (while drunk) about how much time he had spent drinking in his younger days. He now wondered: if he hadn't drank so much when he was 20, could he have accomplished more?
I'd like to point out to the reader: we were both 25 years old at the time.
I'm sorry, but if you're 25, you don't get to look back on your life and wonder where the time went. You don't get to point to past mistakes as having inevitably changed the course of your life to the extent that you're blocked from accomplishing anything. I don't even think you get to act this way to when your 55, or 65.
In the chart above, we're all living in 1955. We're at the fork in the road, and the best part is: there are more than two paths. As a matter of fact, there aren't even paths laid out for you already. They might be there in your brain, but that's a matter of perception. You get to draw your own if you want.
I met a 46-year-old guy about six months ago who said something similar: "If I hadn't drank for the past 20 years, what could I have done?"
Easy to view this kind of attitude as silly, but how much time do you spend worrying about what could have been instead of what could be?