What if?

Do you play the “what if …” game? 

I started playing “what if” awhile ago.  I mentioned in an email to a friend that I wondered what would have been different if I’d gone to graduate school.  I have wondered that off and on, although not all that seriously as I don’t regret the decision I made to not go. 

But then I started thinking more about “what if?” –  what if I’d made this decision instead of that; what if I’d moved there instead of here; what if I’d turned down that invitation; what if … any number of decisions I’ve made through the years.  There are hundreds of decisions – large and small – that have shaped my life. 

I found it amusing that shortly after I started my own little game of “what if”, the topic showed up in a comic strip I enjoy – Pickles.  Both Earl and Opal have started their own games of “what if”, with interesting results. 

It’s hard not to play “what if” – I think we all wonder from time to time what might be different in our lives if we’d made one different decision.  Or would our lives be different?  Is it fate that determines how our lives unfold – in which case no decision we make will affect the outcome.  Or do we get where we are because of a combination of our choices and happenstance?  I tend to come down on the side of choices and happenstance, but sometimes that’s not so comforting. 

Because what often goes along with the “what if” game is the “I regret” game.  This is the dangerous game.  Playing “I regret” has at some points in my life led me – and others I know – to be seriously unhappy with their present reality. Regret can’t change the past, so playing the game seems always to end in a bad place.  It’s a game I hope I’ve left well in the past, although it sometimes beckons in the midst of “what if”. 

I enjoy a good game of “what if”, but it’s also nice to put it away on the shelf and enjoy where my decisions have brought me – assuredly a different place than if I’d made different decisions, but a good place all the same.