If you could go back in time, and travel an alternate path, would you?

[Taverner]

Say you could go back to a specific time and change the course of your life, knowing that all of the experiences you had after that point would never happen - would you?

[Parrcrow]

1. might try to avoid the odd land mine

and I stepped in more piles of dog shit than I care to remember.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

2. No. What fun would that be?

Although I might be tempted to perform some abortions here and there.

[candy]

3. No! The alternative path may not have turned out as well.

[Brahma Bull]

4. Yes, but only if I knew what the alternate path would yield.

[supernova]

5. Possibly I wouldn't have

gotten married to the person I did before. I would have waited for someone else who treated me better.

[blackcat77]

6. Yeah, a couple things.

Most of the time, though, I gained even from the mistakes because I learned and avoided making them again. I think the main thing I'd do would be a lot more judicious about falling in love -- when I was in my teens and twenties, I'd fall head over heels almost instantly which set me up for a lot of unhappiness.

[havocmom]

7. There are a few things I would react to more readily instead of being

forced by others. Outcomes would have been pretty much the same, but I would have spared myself and some I love much heartache.

I would carry back with me a lesson I have since learned: Change is not really what is painful. It is the foolish resistance to inevitable change which injures me most.

And I would have called my mom back every single time she left a message on my machine those last months of her life.

[susanna]

8. Absolutely not.

I am who I am because of my experience. Anything different, and goodness knows, I could have ended up a republican ... or worse (I'll leave that to DUers to elaborate on).

I am so grateful for my life as it is. Every honest, searching, waking moment of it. :-)

[DrWeird]

9. Absolutely.

But first I'd memorize outcomes of major sporting events, and sheet music for popular songs, and maybe a few major scientific discoveries.

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. Absolutely, without question, YES!

I made some INCREDIBLY bad choices in my past that, had i not made them, my life would have been much more fulfilling.

I wanted to fly Helicopters and screwed up a perfect opportunity for a career in that field.

I turned down a DREAM job that i was presented with by the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for a lousy five grand a year difference in offer vs. demand. I look back at that and i STILL cant believe how stupid i was.

I have been struggling to undo such bad choices for years and finally have begun to have a modicum of success at it. But if i had the opportunity to go back and undo them, i would do it in a heartbeat.

[Kenneth ken]

11. tough question

every day of a life one makes choices which change the path in slight or not so slight ways. Looking back on life, one sees numerous larger turning points. Some would be interesting to be able to follow and see where they went. Others, one thinks, yes that would have been better, but truly being an unseen path, it can't be known if it would indeed have been better. It might have started out grand and turned into a sudden surprising death at a much younger age than one has otherwise achieved.

And how can one say with certainty the experiences would all be different? When I read the original post, my first thought of a point to go back to was junior high, and the change to grab more enthusiastically at journalism. Had I done so, that would have changed my major in college, but I would have still opted for the same room mate structure at college, so those experiences would still have played out, or at least many of them.

I went to college and roomed with my best friend. That would not have changed, so we would still have been a bad influence on each other. With journalism as a major, would I have arrived at college a bit more mature and less peer-pressure influencable? Impossible to say.

Certainly I would like to go back, if I could retain the knowledge that I currently posess, but that wasn't part of the question.

[vetwife]

12. Oh Lord No..afraid I would end up a republican !

I would like to think I would have better sense but then who knows?
I just can't see me as a Stepford wife ! Who knows what a lot of money and a lazy lifestyle and a different lifestyle could bring. Susanna I did not read your post..we were on the same wave length..I too am the person I am because of my life experiences.

[Wapsie B]

13. Oh yes, in a heartbeat.

If I had one wish in the world it would be to step into a time machine and go back to a point where I could do it all over. School, job, wife, everything.

[Rhiannon12866]

14. Yes. I have thought of this often.

Now, I just do my best to pick up the pieces.:shrug: