Would You Give Your Younger Self a Redo?

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BY JENNIFER SILVERMAN

Recently, a friend regaled me with commentary on a book series she had just completed. Much to my delight, this particular series was focused on time travel.

Inspired by the notion of corrective sojourns into the past, our conversation quickly morphed into a discussion of redoes for our younger selves.

If we had the ability to go back in time and do over any period in our lives, would we? Intrigued by this thought, I began to ask around.

Those not in the market for a ticket on a time machine were concerned that a life redo would impact their pasts as a whole and thereby their present and futures. Many remarked that one major change could result in a plethora of consequences, perhaps even altering the course of their entire lives.

The folks who were eager to time travel had contrary views. Scores of willing passengers knew exactly which events they would relive differently and felt it would be well worth the trip.

After all, they asserted, why should changing a few events here and there over a lifetime truly affect anything in the future?

Plus, if we are meant to learn specific lessons in life, who's to say that those life lessons were destined to only transpire as they did?

After pondering my friends’ thoughts with great interest, one regretful occasion of my past was foremost in my mind – a dear friend’s funeral. A high schooler at the time, I was so utterly distraught by her premature passing that I couldn’t bring myself to attend her funeral.

I was hyper-focused on my own grief, and thus completely blind to the suffering of everyone else. I should have shown up for her family in mourning, and to honor my beloved pal.

I imagine we all harbor regrets such as not being our best, making a wrong call, hurting someone, or uttering something we shouldn’t have. I’ve certainly made many mistakes in life that colored my view of what came next.

Nonetheless, I'm not tempted to spare my younger self the hardships with a redo.

Weren’t the hard times some of our greatest teachers? And where would we be today without the benefit of those lessons?

Perhaps we weren’t meant to know then what we know now.

Maybe the decisions we regret not only shaped our own learning, but others’ life lessons as well.

Plus, could it be that the knowledge gleaned from our decisions travels further than we realize?

Like my obliviousness of others’ suffering while I was grieving my friend, maybe our vantage points are narrow - when in reality the reach of our actions is much wider.

Retrospect is one of life’s most transformative perspectives.

If we allow ourselves to lean into reflection, clarity can appear where there was previously, only regret.

Daydreaming about time travel is certainly an insight inducing pursuit, but acceptance that the past emerged in perfect order - pain and all, can bring far more comfort.

If the regrets we harbor clutter our minds, what would releasing them do?

Would we have more bandwidth for joy?

Maybe the idea of time travel do overs satisfies our desire to don rose colored glasses or perceive a champagne flute as half full. Furthermore, if we took advantage of time travel redo’s, we could indeed eliminate the painful times.

However, we certainly would not truly know the good, without the bad. So, no ticket to ride for this hypothetical time traveler. Maya Angelou said it best:

“Wouldn’t take nothing for my journey now”.

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