what if...

Did you ever think about your past and wonder what would have happened if...and started to go down memory lane. What would have happened if you went to a different high school. What if...what if..what if things were different. What if you were brought up differently? What if you acted upon an instinct instead of doing what you did? What if? What if? What if?

Life is full of what ifs. Everything we do has a consequence. We can chose one way or another. We can contemplate which one we want to do. We can think we know the outcome, but we really do cannot fathom the end result. We think that if we do a, b and c, then d, e and f will follow. But did you count on X happening and then Y and then W comes along. Yup, it can get confusing. You forget the order of where you want to go, and sometimes you need to go backwards in life, take a few steps back and then go a different route forward. But we didn't plan that. We originally wanted a straight line to the end result, whatever the result is in the current situation.

Most of us have dated in life before we met the one we married. Or, currently still dating. What happened if you decided that the first person you met was to be the one you married? Would your life be different? What happened if you chose a different college or yeshiva to go to? What happened if you decided to get married right out of high school instead of going to seminary or bais medrash? How would your life be if you never watched that movie? If you never heard of internet till you were much older? You never read that book. Or met that person. What if. What if. What if.

If you had the choice (which we all know is impossible, but humor me) to go back in time. What would you do differently? What would you change? What would you do, knowing what you know now, differently? You lived life for x amount of years, go back five years, what would you change? Do you think that if you can go back an infinite amount of years things would be better now? Things would be different? You would have done things differently? Yes? No?

Is it okay to regret the past? Is it okay to not regret the past? Can we just say, the past is the past and just learn from it? Whey regret something? Is it possible not to regret and just learn from it? Do we always need to incorporate the past with our present life? Why do we always bring up the past when we talk? It is much harder to talk about the present, as there really isn't a present, and can't predict the future, so we talk about what we do know, and what can't change. Something that happened already.