The You That Might Have Been

[Ulalume]

This is a weird question, but does anyone one here feel they may have had a glimpse (literally or figuratively) of the person they might have been, had they taken a different path in life?

Or, for those of you who believe in multiple universes, perhaps a version of you that might exist in a parallel world?

I ask because, very occasionally over the years, I've had a strong mental image of a woman who's lived a life quite different than my own. I can trace this back to a time when there was a "fork in the road' situation, when my life diverged dramatically from what I'd planned or expected.

Sometimes this woman appears in my dreams, too. It's sort of amusing, but I dream that she sends me copies of whatever project she's been working on (by fax, of all things. )

This might just be a psychological quirk, but I did make me wonder if anyone else has a similar experience. While I've never known anyone else to describe this, the idea turns up so often in sci-fi and fantasy literature, perhaps it's not so uncommon after all?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Not exactly the same, but I have often thought what might have been if I had chosen various career/life paths.
I have noticed that there are a load of people out there with the same name as me who are all doing things I would have loved to do (artist, author, animator and so on).

Edit: Adding to that...I am an author and illustrator, but I write boring old manuals that don't earn me royalties...

 

[Cochise]

This is a weird question, but does anyone one here feel they may have had a glimpse (literally or figuratively) of the person they might have been, had they taken a different path in life?

Or, for those of you who believe in multiple universes, perhaps a version of you that might exist in a parallel world?

I ask because, very occasionally over the years, I've had a strong mental image of a woman who's lived a life quite different than my own. I can trace this back to a time when there was a "fork in the road' situation, when my life diverged dramatically from what I'd planned or expected.

Sometimes this woman appears in my dreams, too. It's sort of amusing, but I dream that she sends me copies of whatever project she's been working on (by fax, of all things. )

This might just be a psychological quirk, but I did make me wonder if anyone else has a similar experience. While I've never known anyone else to describe this, the idea turns up so often in sci-fi and fantasy literature, perhaps it's not so uncommon after all?

I get dreams like that all the time. Not had it while waking.

 

[Yithian]

This is a weird question, but does anyone one here feel they may have had a glimpse (literally or figuratively) of the person they might have been, had they taken a different path in life?

Funny that you should post this now as I was discussing the matter only yesterday.

Mid-20s I was stuck in a rut, out of money, out of luck and out of the long-term relationship that I'd assumed was the big one. I had lots of top-drawer education, but a broken heart and no direction. I spent so long in my local that the landlord had me running errands and watching the bar when he had to pop out, and I'd sometimes be there waiting for him to open up when he was a few minutes late.

There was a bunch in there - a good crowd but a little depressing when you stepped back to look - all of whom in their own ways were discontent, and some of whom had had spectacularly bad luck in life. It took a while, but seeing where the river of life was leading and being rather ashamed of the state I'd allowed myself to fall into, I took some major decisions: borrowed money from family, got a handy qualification, moved overseas, more or less gave up booze, started my own business, got married, had a daughter - got a life, in short.

Fast-forward six or seven years, and I walk back into my old haunt and enquire about old faces. I'm happy to report that many of those I'd assumed were 'lifers' had found a better way, were rarely seen, and had found - if not always happiness - more contentedness. One chap, however, was still there - five years younger than me but looking ten years older and sick-sick-sick: haggard, appalling skin, chain smoking and seemingly now immune to booze (I shouldn't have liked to look under the bonnet though...). Married briefly, divorced, never saw his daughter - employed, laid off, never again employed - yet delighted to see me. He seemed to have been installed as a kind of totem spirit of the much younger crowd now in attendance, and enthusiastically introduced me to a host of these people with whom I had no more in common than he did. I bought him drinks, of course, and in my horribly English way nudged the discussion towards the future, made a few well-meant suggestions and asked about his plans - they weren't especially distinct.

We were very different people - united, perhaps, only by time, space, and a fairly deep knowledge of music and ale. Perhaps his fate would not have been mine, but I very much felt as if I'd dodged a bullet when I considered the matter on my tipsy walk home.

 

[EnolaGaia]

... Mid-20s I was stuck in a rut, out of money, out of luck and out of the long-term relationship that I'd assumed was the big one. I had lots of top-drawer education, but a broken heart and no direction. ...

There was a bunch in there - a good crowd but a little depressing when you stepped back to look - all of whom in their own ways were discontent, and some of whom had had spectacularly bad luck in life. It took a while, but seeing where the river of life was leading and being rather ashamed of the state I'd allowed myself to fall into, I took some major decisions: ... - got a life, in short.

Fast-forward six or seven years, and I walk back into my old haunt and enquire about old faces. I'm happy to report that many of those I'd assumed were 'lifers' had found a better way, were rarely seen, and had found - if not always happiness - more contentedness. One chap, however, was still there ...

We were very different people - united, perhaps, only by time, space, and a fairly deep knowledge of music and ale. Perhaps his fate would not have been mine, but I very much felt as if I'd dodged a bullet when I considered the matter on my tipsy walk home.

I know what you mean ... This echoes similarly depressing encounters I've had with friends from much earlier in my life. Not surprisingly, those among my own life acquaintances whose stories most closely match your one chap were the first to die off, and most of them are gone now. That's sad enough, but even sadder is the fact that the set of such early departing friends all too often includes the more / most creative, funny, and worldly-wise folks.

 

[EnolaGaia]

Circling back to Ulalume's opening queries ...

Yes - I've had imaginative glimpses of myself time-progressed down one or another path distinct from the one I ended up following. For the most part, these are glimpses of a self that screwed up, missed a significant opportunity, or let himself passively slide into some form of convenient or safe mainstream mediocrity. As such, these glimpses are most likely to be depressing or cautionary.

This is not to say I believe my actual life has been optimal, nor that I believe I've maximally exploited my opportunities or potential.

One other point, which I am having trouble clearly delineating ... I've noticed that when drifting into or through such 'what if' scenarios, my emotional(?) orientation to the 'what if / what could have been' is heavily influenced by the difference between (a) choices I made all on my own versus (b) choices partially or wholly thrust upon me by circumstances. To the extent a choice was thrust upon me, some measure of ascribed blame / responsibility correspondingly shifts outside myself. This shift doesn't necessarily make things more fair or clear - if anything, it's more likely to increase the levels of second-guessing and associated angst.

 

[Coal]

I wonder about this. I ponder on the Coal who had a permanent home (as opposed to a new one every two years) and one good secondary (grammar) school. I suspect I'd have been 'more successful' but right about now be wondering why I'm such a drone. And probably complaining about it on some super-dull semi-detached forum.

 

[rynner2]

Just one small example (everything else is too painful to contemplate):

At the end of year exams in my Grammar School Fourth Form, I came top in two subjects, Art and Physics.

But then my family moved, and I found myself at a new school, where they didn't have art classes, or put pupils in for Art GCEs. So I went on to study maths and physics at Uni. Much as I liked it, my maths wasn't good enough to make a career in topics I liked, so I drifted into other fields of endeavour.

I often wonder what my life would have been like if I'd been able to continue with art instead. Perhaps I would have ended up at Falmouth Art School, as was, before it got gobbled up by the ever-growing monster of Falmouth University!

 

[Mythopoeika]

Just one small example (everything else is too painful to contemplate):

At the end of year exams in my Grammar School Fourth Form, I came top in two subjects, Art and Physics.

But then my family moved, and I found myself at a new school, where they didn't have art classes, or put pupils in for Art GCEs. So I went on to study maths and physics at Uni. Much as I liked it, my maths wasn't good enough to make a career in topics I liked, so I drifted into other fields of endeavour.

I often wonder what my life would have been like if I'd been able to continue with art instead. Perhaps I would have ended up at Falmouth Art School, as was, before it got gobbled up by the ever-growing monster of Falmouth University!

Did you carry on and be a Sunday painter?

 

[rynner2]

Did you carry on and be a Sunday painter?

No, life got too busy in my teens. I still did a lot of drawing or boat designing however. Perhaps I should have studied marine architecture or something instead.

The trouble is, when you're young you're often not aware of all the possibilities the world offers. If I ever had any Careers Guidance it was probably "This is how you apply for a University place..."!

 

[Coal]

But then my family moved, and I found myself at a new school, where they didn't have art classes, or put pupils in for Art GCEs. So I went on to study maths and physics at Uni. Much as I liked it, my maths wasn't good enough to make a career in topics I liked, so I drifted into other fields of endeavour.

Oddly, I was a pretty good artist, especially drawing in pencil or charcoal (with physics my best subject otherwise), but declined to take it at 'O' Level as it didn't seem of any use. I wish now I'd kept it up and have more than once contemplated going back to drawing as a hobby and investing in a few lessons.

(The sibling got a "B" at O Level and he was rank, something that amused him as I was a far better artist.)

 

[EnolaGaia]

... The trouble is, when you're young you're often not aware of all the possibilities the world offers. If I ever had any Careers Guidance it was probably "This is how you apply for a University place..."!

That's another thing that's become all too difficult for young people today - having the time to sort out what one really wants to do with his / her life. I'm appalled at the way young folks are now being shunted through secondary and collegiate programs with the prime objective being their expeditious insertion into a job (merely a job - not a vocation, not a career ...).

I recognized I wasn't ready to commit to any specific lifelong trajectory in my teens. Around the time I went off to college, I informally laid out a sort of life plan. The central tenet in this plan was that I had to commit to some sort of long-term (not necessarily lifelong ... ) vocational / career path no later than age 30. Until that deadline, I was free to try out / sample / explore anything I wanted, so long as I remained nominally self-supporting and hence independent.

At first this vague plan was something of a running joke among my circles. In the end, it turned out to be exactly what I did.

After 4 years of liberal arts education I had greatly expanded the list of possibilities without narrowing my set of choices, so I let the exploratory phase continue. Once I got to 26 I made an interim commitment to a civil service job offering a doubling of salary during the 3-year training and certification phase and a clear upward career ladder thereafter. This was not the long-awaited career choice per se - it was the establishment of a solid and profitable platform upon which I could prepare myself for the anticipated career election and whatever it entailed.

As I approached my 30th birthday, I'd narrowed my long-term options to either law or information technology. I chose computers over courtrooms and returned to college as a freshman in computer science. Eleven years later I became 'Herr Doktor' and began the interesting and comfortable career that's served me well for about a quarter century now.

It wasn't easy. During that 11 year period I was self-supporting (4 years of progressively successful employment on the civil service job platform; 3 years of fully funded fellowship; and another 4 years of full-time employment as a senior analyst and research professor).

We all are likely to burn our candles at both ends during our lives. I made a point to burn a younger candle at both ends so I'd not have to dually light an older version that was less likely to endure the load.

Most of my surviving friends who'd ribbed me about my sketchy life plan 40-some years ago are themselves approaching or entering full retirement. The main difference among us relates to what shape we found ourselves in as we approached the finish line. Most of my friends' progress to the finish line involved at least 4 decades of patiently 'working for The Man' in The Man's designated office space and on The Man's schedule. A lot of stress, and not much 'slack'.

My approach left me relatively 'behind' (in terms of overall / demonstrable progress) until I emerged as a fully-equipped and highly motivated professional whose 'work' was also his 'game' (area of personal interest). I'm approaching the finish line at my own pace, having already enjoyed over 15 years of being formally authorized to work from home, adhere to my own schedule, and 'mail it in'. My path has involved a lot of slack and not many of the external stressors that have plagued my pals.

Here's another aspect of the difference(s) ... I'm content to milk my situation for so long as clients want my services rather than feeling pressed to finally escape once and for all.

To the extent this constitutes 'success', I'd attribute the bulk of that success to having waited until my preferred vocational path became apparent to me before binding myself with long-term commitments.

I'm not recommending that everyone follow my model. Mine is an admittedly extreme counter-example to the mainstream folly of time-pressured slot-insertion, but it at least demonstrates there are alternatives to getting stampeded in one's teens.

I keep telling young folks the most valuable objective isn't 'wealth' or 'fame', but 'slack'. I can't say any of them seem to have grasped what I was talking about. I fear that (like a few of my old friends) they won't understand my point until it's too late for them to do anything about it.

 

[oldrover]

I get the concept of slack. Big time. I work in an area that has absolutely none. It's very hard to be honest. I have a lot of autonomy in my job, but frankly a lot of the time, that just equates to professional risk.

Anyway, I've noted the art thing coming up a few times in this thread.

I spent years chasing that particular balloon. I drifted from school, with pretty much nothing except a few 'O' levels, to the YTS, to college, to more dead end jobs. No idea what the hell I wanted to do, except the pub.

I'd always been good at art, it was a family thing, and thought why not give that a try. I'd never made any effort at anything in my life, so I had no reason to think this would turn out to in any way demanding.

It was supposed to be a cop out way of making a bit of spare cash. Then I got obsessed with the kind of realism you see in some of the 16/17th C masters. My idea was to work like this with contemporary subject matter.

After about ten years I got pretty much to where I wanted to be.

A few years after that, I knew that I can look at an old master and understand it, and without wanting to sound boastful, reproduce it. Technical skill I had. I can do whatever I want with oil paint. And I'm no slouch as a sculptor either.

After about eighteen years though, it struck me, so what? As I'd been warned by people who had a fraction of my technical skill, and who I'd therefore written off as idiots, I was spending so much time working out how to do it. That I'd forgotten why I'd ever wanted to in the first place. I had nothing to say. All I knew by then was technique. I had no freedom, nothing fresh. All the gear, but at the expense of any ideas.

I'd had a couple of commercial opportunities, but never worked at them. Because I felt I was better than that. So I was left with pretty much nothing. I'd become the most insular, inexperienced person I knew. It hadn't been healthy.
Since realising that, I've never touched a paint brush. And never will again.

So, I changed my direction mid thirties, went back to university, and now work in a clinical area as unrelated as you could get.

I do get little flashes sometimes of what if? If I hadn't been such a closed minded, arrogant twit. And had taken the advice of others. Maybe it would have led me down a different path.

But although my job now is a bit harsh, sad and overbearing. Always, when I reflect of my nearly twenty years of painting, I always think 'thank fuck I'm out of that'.

Anyway, I met my other half in my new work. So no regrets at all.

Be nice to have a bit more slack though.

 

[David Plankton]

I often wonder what my life would have been like if I'd been able to continue with art instead.

It's not too late! I bet there are loads of art courses, especially in Cornwall that you can do. A lot of them are very basic, but they get you back into the swing of things.
At the very least I think you should get a sketchbook and some pencils and do something - anything. It might be crap but you'll never know unless you do it.

 

[David Plankton]

I get the concept of slack. Big time. I work in an area that has absolutely none. It's very hard to be honest. I have a lot of autonomy in my job, but frankly a lot of the time, that just equates to professional risk.

Anyway, I've noted the art thing coming up a few times in this thread.

I spent years chasing that particular balloon. I drifted from school, with pretty much nothing except a few 'O' levels, to the YTS, to college, to more dead end jobs. No idea what the hell I wanted to do, except the pub.

I'd always been good at art, it was a family thing, and thought why not give that a try. I'd never made any effort at anything in my life, so I had no reason to think this would turn out to in any way demanding.

It was supposed to be a cop out way of making a bit of spare cash. Then I got obsessed with the kind of realism you see in some of the 16/17th C masters. My idea was to work like this with contemporary subject matter.

After about ten years I got pretty much to where I wanted to be.

A few years after that, I knew that I can look at an old master and understand it, and without wanting to sound boastful, reproduce it. Technical skill I had. I can do whatever I want with oil paint. And I'm no slouch as a sculptor either.

After about eighteen years though, it struck me, so what? As I'd been warned by people who had a fraction of my technical skill, and who I'd therefore written off as idiots, I was spending so much time working out how to do it. That I'd forgotten why I'd ever wanted to in the first place. I had nothing to say. All I knew by then was technique. I had no freedom, nothing fresh. All the gear, but at the expense of any ideas.

I'd had a couple of commercial opportunities, but never worked at them. Because I felt I was better than that. So I was left with pretty much nothing. I'd become the most insular, inexperienced person I knew. It hadn't been healthy.
Since realising that, I've never touched a paint brush. And never will again.

So, I changed my direction mid thirties, went back to university, and now work in a clinical area as unrelated as you could get.

I do get little flashes sometimes of what if? If I hadn't been such a closed minded, arrogant twit. And had taken the advice of others. Maybe it would have led me down a different path.

But although my job now is a bit harsh, sad and overbearing. Always, when I reflect of my nearly twenty years of painting, I always think 'thank fuck I'm out of that'.

Anyway, I met my other half in my new work. So no regrets at all.

Be nice to have a bit more slack though.

I've never heard of someone giving up being an artist before.

 

[oldrover]

It was retiring from something that turned sour. I still appreciate it, and am very fond of the few bits I have left. But never feel the urge to get back to it.

 

[Mythopoeika]

I've never heard of someone giving up being an artist before.

Neither have I!

 

[Mythopoeika]

It was retiring from something that turned sour. I still appreciate it, and am very fond of the few bits I have left. But never feel the urge to get back to it.

How did it turn sour? Was it not working out financially?

 

[Swifty]

I was hell bent on being a professional special F/X makeup artist as a teen, If I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd be building a F/X lab around my dreams .. I've studied everything around that, I even know correct room temperatures to create our stuff and to keep a diary around that, I'm that nerdy. I went to art college and film school to achieve it all, my school advisor even used to send kids to me when I was at college after I left school who wanted to do the same thing, but ... well ...

I've freestyle worked on two BBC productions (One Foot In The Grave and Chalkface) only through bullshitting my way onto the sets because I'm not part of any union, I've also worked on a few amateur films from Super 8 to VHS to todays digital productions over four decades now but have never secured a full time job ..

In my dreams, I'd be working alongside Greg Nicotero, Rob Bottin or Stan Winston ..

 

[oldrover]

Neither have I!

That's the point though, I wasn't an artist. Very early on, and without noticing it, I'd stepped off that road. All I had at the end was technique. A wonderful vocabulary but nothing to say.

 

[Cochise]

That's another thing that's become all too difficult for young people today - having the time to sort out what one really wants to do with his / her life. I'm appalled at the way young folks are now being shunted through secondary and collegiate programs with the prime objective being their expeditious insertion into a job (merely a job - not a vocation, not a career ...).

I recognized I wasn't ready to commit to any specific lifelong trajectory in my teens. Around the time I went off to college, I informally laid out a sort of life plan. The central tenet in this plan was that I had to commit to some sort of long-term (not necessarily lifelong ... ) vocational / career path no later than age 30. Until that deadline, I was free to try out / sample / explore anything I wanted, so long as I remained nominally self-supporting and hence independent.

At first this vague plan was something of a running joke among my circles. In the end, it turned out to be exactly what I did.

After 4 years of liberal arts education I had greatly expanded the list of possibilities without narrowing my set of choices, so I let the exploratory phase continue. Once I got to 26 I made an interim commitment to a civil service job offering a doubling of salary during the 3-year training and certification phase and a clear upward career ladder thereafter. This was not the long-awaited career choice per se - it was the establishment of a solid and profitable platform upon which I could prepare myself for the anticipated career election and whatever it entailed.

As I approached my 30th birthday, I'd narrowed my long-term options to either law or information technology. I chose computers over courtrooms and returned to college as a freshman in computer science. Eleven years later I became 'Herr Doktor' and began the interesting and comfortable career that's served me well for about a quarter century now.

It wasn't easy. During that 11 year period I was self-supporting (4 years of progressively successful employment on the civil service job platform; 3 years of fully funded fellowship; and another 4 years of full-time employment as a senior analyst and research professor).

We all are likely to burn our candles at both ends during our lives. I made a point to burn a younger candle at both ends so I'd not have to dually light an older version that was less likely to endure the load.

Most of my surviving friends who'd ribbed me about my sketchy life plan 40-some years ago are themselves approaching or entering full retirement. The main difference among us relates to what shape we found ourselves in as we approached the finish line. Most of my friends' progress to the finish line involved at least 4 decades of patiently 'working for The Man' in The Man's designated office space and on The Man's schedule. A lot of stress, and not much 'slack'.

My approach left me relatively 'behind' (in terms of overall / demonstrable progress) until I emerged as a fully-equipped and highly motivated professional whose 'work' was also his 'game' (area of personal interest). I'm approaching the finish line at my own pace, having already enjoyed over 15 years of being formally authorized to work from home, adhere to my own schedule, and 'mail it in'. My path has involved a lot of slack and not many of the external stressors that have plagued my pals.

Here's another aspect of the difference(s) ... I'm content to milk my situation for so long as clients want my services rather than feeling pressed to finally escape once and for all.

To the extent this constitutes 'success', I'd attribute the bulk of that success to having waited until my preferred vocational path became apparent to me before binding myself with long-term commitments.

I'm not recommending that everyone follow my model. Mine is an admittedly extreme counter-example to the mainstream folly of time-pressured slot-insertion, but it at least demonstrates there are alternatives to getting stampeded in one's teens.

I keep telling young folks the most valuable objective isn't 'wealth' or 'fame', but 'slack'. I can't say any of them seem to have grasped what I was talking about. I fear that (like a few of my old friends) they won't understand my point until it's too late for them to do anything about it.

I'm not sure that's actually changed much. Even though I passed my 11+ and went to a very good grammar school, careers advice (other than, as mentioned, how to apply for uni) was worthless. Many of my friends went off to uni to study subjects they had only the vaguest interest in, and ended up being accountants or civil servants and hating it.

I had no idea what I was going to do, lucked into a career early on by accident, and despite all the self-inflicted and fate-inflicted setbacks I've had its always given me an income to fall back on. That piece of luck is the defining thing in my life which has led to pretty much all the other good things.

 

[Ulalume]

Thanks for all the replies. It certainly is food for thought, the way we ponder these things.

One other point, which I am having trouble clearly delineating ... I've noticed that when drifting into or through such 'what if' scenarios, my emotional(?) orientation to the 'what if / what could have been' is heavily influenced by the difference between (a) choices I made all on my own versus (b) choices partially or wholly thrust upon me by circumstances. To the extent a choice was thrust upon me, some measure of ascribed blame / responsibility correspondingly shifts outside myself. This shift doesn't necessarily make things more fair or clear - if anything, it's more likely to increase the levels of second-guessing and associated angst.

I think I get what you mean here. Without going into a lot of detail, the "forking path" I encountered in my teen years was one that involved my own wishes versus others.

Myself, I had hoped to follow the same route as most of my peers - finish school, go to university, work a series of crummy jobs until I had a degree and some prospects for a career. Nothing very special, just what most middle-class kids of my generation expected to do. However, the fact that my home life was unstable (and my parent at this point was very unstable) pretty much shredded those plans, and I ended up one of those "throwaways" that had started piling up in cities in the 90's.

I had to live a difficult existence until I could pull myself into some kind of stability. It wasn't the best, but enough that I could catch my breath and see something had gone very wrong. I was haunted by a sense that I'd taken a wrong turn, or had diverged from the correct path. It really felt as if I were supposed to be somewhere else. Gradually I built up a life of sorts, strong enough to get to a better place. And I did have a distinct sense at that time of coming back to...if not the one right path, at least one of the better ones available to me.

At times I've blamed myself for not realizing that education was one of the things that would flip my parent's rage switch. The deep bitterness against educated people. But here is where blame shifts outside myself. How could someone mess me around like that? Deliberately push me into bad situations, especially at that age?

Still, I tell myself to be grateful. At least I survived. Perhaps there's an alternate reality in which I didn't. *shudder*

When I think back to the months preceding all this...it might sound strange, but it really does seem like a "node" of time, somewhere between April and August of that year. As if the paths branched off right there, perhaps a few different ways. Whenever I hear music from that specific period, or other references from that era, I get a weird chill up my spine. Almost like a warning.

This supposed "other self" who turns up in my dreams or as a mental image - well, I assume she must have gone off to university with the rest of my class, probably studied art (like many of the other selves here did, it seems ) and has lived a rather bohemian existence since then. Don't know if she's any happier than me, only different.

The things she sends by dream fax are pages from the graphic novels she's written and illustrated. A couple of them. They're funny and clever, and a bit in the style of Love And Rockets.

Not really something my current self is likely to have done or will ever do, but it's nice of her to keep me updated. If that's what it is.

 

[Cochise]

Thing is, are you happy in your skin?

Despite all the mistakes I have made and not-so-nice things that have happened to me I like being who I am, and if those errors and so on hadn't happened I wouldn't be me. It's easy to look back and think you could have done things better. To counteract that I sort of keep a list, if you like, of the good things, or things that could have gone worse.

For example, I only have one eye. What caused me to lose the other one was never diagnosed, and fortunately it only affected one eye. If it had affected both then I'd be a completely different person, and , from my perspective, a lot unhappier, since going blind is the one thing I'm actually scared of.

If I'd have been more imaginative I'd have been scared of losing my wife, but I always assumed I'd die first, since I'm fairly unhealthy - or at least carry several health problems - and she was never ill.

 

[Coal]

Thing is, are you happy in your skin?

Despite all the mistakes I have made and not-so-nice things that have happened to me I like being who I am, and if those errors and so on hadn't happened I wouldn't be me. It's easy to look back and think you could have done things better. To counteract that I sort of keep a list, if you like, of the good things, or things that could have gone worse.

I've occasionally been asked if I would change anything in my life - I've made mistakes 'technically' speaking, some I'd myself called dumb (would I do any differently again? I'm not certain) and others which other people have told me were mistakes, which I've come to realise was mostly whining that I wasn't doing what they wanted.

If you are happy in your skin, the answer to '"would I change anything?" has to be "no". You might think that a different decision would have improved things, but there are no guarantees. There's no knowing, if you more-or-less like it where you are, it's worked out fine. A 'better' decision at some fork in the road ten years ago (even if you are thinking four moves ahead) might have left you destitute, broke, mad or dead.

If your past decisions bother you, then try to make better ones from this time forward, you can't do any more.

 

[escargot]

I have sooo many regrets, but as Coal points out, it's all in the past and there's no saying whether things would've been any better in the long run.

If I'd stuck to what I was doing 40 years ago, and the man I was with back then had too, we'd both be prosperous professionals with pots of money and, I dunno, a boat and some hamsters.

Instead I have Techy. Bargain!

 

[gellatly68]

Nice to see so many people here who've followed the same kinds of trajectory and indulge in the same 'what if' questions as me

I've been an ELT professional for years, until I was unceremoniously booted out of my FE college last year thanks to spending cuts and incompetent managers. I've always enjoyed teaching English, but this hiatus (or so I thought) gave me scope to reflect on why I had made it a career. The fact is, I'd drifted into TEFL as a way of escaping the drudgery of the call centre where I sold car number plates (see my Edwin Starr story) - but how had I ended up in the call centre? Indeed, how had I ended up in all my various jobs?

Largely, it's because I had never had a solid plan about what I was doing after (even before) uni - and, suddenly bereft of the workplace I'd been in since 2000, I realised I still didn't have a clue!

A terrifying insight, but also a curiously liberating one. I also realised that, despite the fact that I'm a technically brilliant teacher (that's other professionals' opinions, I hasten to add), what I actually enjoyed most was delivering the performance: My pre-class battlecry was 'It's Shooowtiime!'. Don't get me wrong: there is true delight in watching a learner suddenly 'get' something, or do something that they couldn't do before, but looking back the best moments were when I explained something clearly, then went for the joke.

So, I think my life went badly off course in the past because going off course was easier than following the 'right', single path. Having said that, I've always seemed to have so many paths ahead of me that I end up getting confused and staying right where I am.

Anyhoo, going back to the OP's original question, why yes, yes, I have experienced it, but only in dreams. They're always the same: Somehow, I'm hopping between different dimensions and different versions of me, and invariably I get stuck in the wrong dimension.

The best one of those dreams was the one where there were three of me having to work together to solve something: It was all a bit Doctor Who crossed with a farce.

 

[GingerTabby]

This past weekend I had a similar discussion with a friend. While I can't say I've ever had a dream or vision of what my life might have been if I'd taken a different path, like other posters I do sometimes wonder if I should have chosen different routes at various times in my life. When I get these thoughts I have to remind myself there's no point in questioning decisions I made when I was younger. Given the person I was at the time and the circumstances in which I found myself, I made the best decisions I could. To look back now and say I should have made different choices is to evaluate my past situation through the lens of my current situation and outlook. And as other posters have observed, there's no guarantee that any of us would be happier or better off if we had followed a different path.

To go slightly off topic, one important lesson I have learned is to seize opportunities when they arise. A while ago I mentioned on another thread that my partner died in 2012 at age 56 after a three-year battle with brain cancer. His illness and death made me realise that we have to make the most of the time we have because we don't know what lies ahead. That may seem obvious but it's something people tend to ignore. My partner never expressed any regrets about his decisions in life but I do know there was more he wanted to accomplish. He never had the chance, unfortunately. I don't want to be on my deathbed wishing I'd done X, Y or Z. For that reason, I'm trying to make the most of the opportunities that come my way.

 

[Ulalume]

I agree there's no point in focusing on regrets. No way to change the past. There are some experiences that, IMO, have made me a better person and some that have caused permanent damage. Still, we can't go back in time (yet ) so there's nothing to do about it now.

Am I happy in my skin? Absolutely not, but then I'm an American and I'm pretty sure all post WW2 Americans were handed a copy of Maslow's hierarchy of needs at birth and told to get busy.

Still, I'm intrigued by the concept. Perhaps I've read too much Borges.

The Other Half and I were discussing this subject earlier today, about times we've felt fated, or sensed a warning about some choice we were about to make. We even have a half-baked theory about deja vu being when you and your alternate self are doing the same thing at the same time. (Can you tell we love thought experiments? Ha.)

To me, it does seem like some situations are the equivalent of taking a wrong exit off the freeway and being lost in a confusing neighborhood. There's a sense of relief when you've found your way out again.

 

[kamalktk]

I dream that she sends me copies of whatever project she's been working on (by fax, of all things. )

Well her reality stinks if it topped out at faxing as the ultimate in communications technology.

/posting via internet on smartphone....

 

[skinny]

I've not so much imagined an alternative current self as been given quite a strong indication that I was alive before my birth. I have always felt that, even despite being the youngest and smallest in my school classes, I was born 20 years too late, and that so much that occurred in the 60s and 70s was my era. Is that unusual? I don't subscribe to reincarnation. I am open to the possibility though. Several of my Korean friends were convinced that I had been Korean in a past life. My wife, a Korean non-practising Buddhist does not believe this is the case. I'm inclined to look more deeply into Buddhist thought and practices.