Altering Your History

I started writing a novella a few years ago that I'll probably try and finish one of these days.

The premise is simple - A man on death row is given an opportunity to go back in time and alter the outcome of an event which would change his current circumstances. He's advised not to try and alter the specific event which brought him there, as it's been the experience of the offerer that this tack does not work. Rather, he should go back much further, to an event which seemed insignificant at the time, but which could now be perceived as a turning point, leading to everything that followed.

If you could go back and change one event in your life to improve your present circumstances, would you? (Personally, I wouldn't)

If you would, what might that event be?

 

I might. But I would need a tremendous amount of time to think it through. Like a move in a chess game, I'd have to consider every possible alternative. I can't answer what that event might be without giving this much more thought.

Intriquing.

 

in my final year of high school we had to make a pool of 6 university courses, one which would ultimately become our university course...

what i'd choose now would be starkly different to what i chose back then

 

Hmm. This is indeed a very intriguing idea. I don't think I would change anything - I quite like where my life is now. I would, however, have liked to change my relationship with my father. Perhaps he'd be alive if we'd had open communication from an early point.

 

I don't know if it counts as changing an event, but...I have a persistent daydream of being able to go back and have a chat with my high school self, and give him advice so that he/I could make some different choices over my high school and college years. There's not necessarily one key event I would want to change, so much as a series of minor choices that cumulatively did not end up working to my benefit.

 

I'd go back about 10-15 years and pick different lottery numbers.

 

I don't think this is worth thinking about, except that it may help you make different (maybe better) choices in the future. I don't feel like there is too much wrong with my life.

but, there was this girl in high school that was keen on me...

 

I read 11/22/63 over the Christmas Holiday and was struck by the parallels between it and the story I'd been writing. Fortunately, mine is not so far reaching and relies more on the metaphysical and less on time travel. But it definitely gave me pause and some ideas of where and where not go with the story.

PonyPotato - If I could, I would most definitely go back and change things with my Dad, too. More than 20 years have passed since he died and I still suffer pangs of guilt over the last words I said to him. He'd had a stroke some years before and was in a wheelchair. His two favorite pastimes were Red Sox baseball and cooking breakfast. I was living with he and my Mom (me, in between life crises) and I rarely if ever ate breakfast. But he always made the offer. The day he had another stroke and died was the day I chose to hurtfully and sarcastically respond to his offer by asking him if he was fucking stupid or something. God, how I wish I could take that back.

 

yeah ditto. there was this one girl that was 4 or 5 years older that wasnt even at my school, but was keen as mustard on me.. i was so innocent that i rejected her advances. I had such great friends, that wouldnt let opportunities pass. One of my best friends made sure he made the most of itwith this hottie in the school toilets a few weeks later..

my friend an i had a great laugh about it a few weeks ago.

 

Great point. If we eliminate those negative moments will they appear later in life since we had not yet learned that life lesson?

 

Are there things that I would like to have done differently? Decisions made, actions taken... There are a number of things that I would like to change. The thing is, while my life isn't perfect (whose is?), I am pretty content with where I am.

There was this one weekend where my Dad invited me, my brother and step-brother up to his house for dinner. We had a pretty good discussion. We had always had an uneven relationship but since my son was born, I had started to get a grip on how I felt about him and it wasn't all bad. At the time that dinner felt like the next step in making things right between us. When he asked me to stay over rather than drive all the way back to Toronto, I said no. I didn't have any pressing reason to rush home, I just wanted to get back to my own home. I can still remember standing at his door and saying good-bye... I remember almost staying.

A week later he was dead by his own hand.

I just wish I had stayed and had breakfast with him the next morning.

 

Going back and changing one event will no more determine you current happiness than leaving it as is.

Shit, there's a whole heap of stuff I wish I could go back an change, but your fuck ups in life are just as responsible for making you the person you are as right decisions.

In short, no, given the ability, I wouldn't go back and change anything.

 

Heh, I was about to say I'd simply go back yesterday and pick the winning numbers to the megamillions. But, I am fortunate enough not to go through something like [user]Joniemack[/user] over here:

That must suck. I'm sorry you have to live with that. This is something I would hate myself over if it happenned. I have no similar regrets big enough that warrant time travel.

 

this is an easy one for me. i would go back and change things around so my best friend didn't flip his convertible and die with me sitting next to him. the thing is that i couldn't be sure exactly how to prevent it completely. who's to say that if i didn't go with him on the trip we took for instance, he might have flipped the car anyway somehow. or if he got a rental car instead of his pos convertible that a piano wouldn't have fallen on his head by his house. who knows?

i generally avoid these lines of thought because i could easily "woulda coulda shoulda" myself into quite a pit of despondency.

 

I think it's best we can't go back. Living with regret for things we've said or done is painful. We change our behaviors to avoid adding to the pain. I think regret is also a good sign that our conscience is in healthy working order. I wouldn't want to be the type of person who never felt regret or remorse.

I regret not going away to college when I was younger and had the opportunity to. Then I have to stop and wonder who and where I would be right now. My life would probably be different, but would it be better?

We make decisions and manage the outcomes and consequences the best we can. There is no going back so we do no more than mentally fuck with ourselves over what ifs.

 

Respect.

And Me Too. I envy the "no regrets" camp.

The countless times I was, at best, clueless, and at worst, acting our of fear rather than anything I actually wanted.

Would I go back? Definitely. I'm a geek, a tinkerer. Even if I had no regrets, I reckon I'd still want to revisit and re-explore options. For a moment, I felt utterly gloom and doom laden, but I realise, I'd love to go back and change stuff just because I could. See what might have happened.