Everyone has regrets. Life is an unending series of choices.  If you could go back and change one decision that you made in the past, what would it be?

That catch is that whatever you change, even something so insignificant as choosing a different pair of socks to wear on a particular day has the potential to change everything that follows, not only for your self, but for the universe.  It is fallacious to assume that our future will be exactly the same with the exception of that one thing.  The possible variations are infinite.  Take the sock example.  You choose to wear the green paisley socks instead of the solid black ones.  A person at Starbucks where you always stop for a latte notices and comments upon your socks.  That opens a conversation and you become friends.  That friend leads you to a new job opportunity and you change your career path.  All because of a sock choice.  Or maybe because you wore those socks on that day, you subsequently did your laundry early in order to wear the socks again and on the way to the laundry, you wrecked your car and that caused….  You see how it works?  Let’s say that you want to go back and spend a final day in the company of a departed loved one.  Imagine the variables that would introduce into your “present”.  Everything could change.  Your future self and everything around you  would change.

Every living thing experiences and responds to an unending series of chance events.  Being struck by lightning or struck by a meteorite is unpredictable but a series of conscious and unconscious decisions along with influences of environment, human interaction, mechanical dependencies, social relationships, economic influences, education and a host of other variables come together to create one moment of time and space which is inhabited by a person.  All living things and even non-living things are subject to many variables.  To change even one of those variables can change the entire course of history.

Benjamin Franklin famously summed it up this way,

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”

To get back to the original question, “What would you change?”, any choice that you make could have unimaginable and profound consequences.  Many science fiction writers have explored this idea.  One of the most imaginative treatments was by Frank Herbert in his Dune series.  Time travel stories also address some of the issues.

Theorists propose a variety of ways to explain these matters–a multiverse  where every possible variation of every possible event exists along an infinite number of timelines, multiple dimensions, parallel worlds and other exotic and esoteric applications of string theory, quantum mechanics, relativity and mathematics.

My conclusion, at least for now, is that it is a fool’s question and fool’s answer.  In the face of personal tragedy, we all ask “what if” questions.  There can be no answers because it is impossible to know the result of changing any particular thing.  We are constrained by our timeline.  Our actions or failure to act influence our futures.  Some of consequences are are fairly predictable in many cases, but all the ramifications are impossible to see in advance and may not be even recognized as they unfold.  I can’t change what is past.  Regrets are useful only to inform better decision making.  Tragedy can only be accepted.

My faith gives me the courage to face tragedy and adversity as well as triumph and blessing with the knowledge, if not the understanding, that this is my life to live with grace, humility and altruism–all under God’s love, mercy and power.   It is also my life to live richly, joyfully and righteously.  The past and the future are beyond my reach.  In my present I can try to be my best, my most genuine, my most engaged and positive self and therein be content.