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If you could turn back time, would you change anything? Or are you happy with how everything has turned out?
This week's Spiritual Newsletter is all about memories and lessons learned.
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If you could turn back time, would you change anything? It’s a common question, and one that I have asked myself on occasion. I have had my share of embarrassing moments and regrettable choices. I will readily admit that I’ve fantasized about revisiting those times – played them out in my mind the way that I would have preferred.
Have you ever done that? It’s like thinking of a clever response when it’s far too late to say it. Or more like a motion picture where you’re in control in a way that you aren’t in real life, and everything works out the way you want it to. Except, no matter how many times you play that mental movie, it doesn’t change anything. The past is the past. Everything’s already happened. That’s something that we all have to live with.
It’s often said that that is not a bad thing. That if you could change the past, you would be a different person than you are today, and who knows where you would have ended up? Everything you treasure about your life right now might be lost with the slightest alteration to your journey. That may be true, and it’s no doubt meant to be a comforting attempt to get us to move on, but it doesn’t help much when, at 3:30 in the morning, my mind suddenly insists on looking back on that day when I had to hold a presentation in front of all my classmates and I got so anxious that I rushed through it, found that I had quite a few more minutes left to speak and didn’t have a clue what to do, so in sheer panic I went through the entire thing again! I mean, it’s not like that experience haunts me in day-to-day life all these years later, but if we’re meant to move on why does my brain throw it back in my face at random times?
You might say that we’re meant to learn from our experiences. That my brain is doing what it does because there is a lesson there that I have not yet learned. I would argue that I have learned plenty from those 15 nightmarish minutes: avoid public speaking at all cost, for example. It’s something that’s worked for me ever since I left high school, and that was a longer time ago than I would like to admit. Thank goodness that I wasn’t forced into anything of the kind at university, nor at any of my jobs.
Perhaps the lesson was to not take myself too seriously? Or to understand my own strengths and weaknesses? I don’t know. It must have been funny to watch. Just like when my friend Leila dragged me into a fashion show and she and I strutted down the catwalk in the most ungraceful manner you can possibly think of. My mom loves to remind me of that one.
Ballroom dancing. Leila persuaded me to try that, too. I still remember the teacher’s voice. It rapidly filled with despair at my attempts. I don’t know how my life story and subsequent choices would have changed if I hadn’t tried that. Or if I hadn’t slipped in the snow one day and landed face-first in a pile of dog poo. Would my life truly be that different? Was that experience absolutely necessary?
I don’t know if our life stories are written, or if everything simply happens. If it’s written, someone up there has a sense of humour and I wonder what else they have in store for me. I can’t complain too much, though. Things aren’t that bad. There are many people who have lived through far worse experiences than I have. There are many who are living far worse lives now. I have a roof over my head, food on the table, friends, family, someone I love who loves me right back, and a cat who’s kind of moved in. And you know what? I’m learning to like myself.
It can be a big thing to learn to like yourself. I’ve struggled with it for a long time. For all my flaws, and all my clumsiness, I am beginning to learn that I’m okay. Let the past be the past, with all its cringe-worthy moments. Perhaps the biggest lesson of all is that we are who we are, and we’re fine. 
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Spiritual: March 20, 2019 Issue [#9446]
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