Wednesday, March 6, 2019

If I Could Live in Any Time…


By Robin Weaver


Maybe it’s cheating, but I’d want to live in perpetual yesterday. Think about it. How cool would it be to have a re-do day? Every day?

I don’t mean a Groundhog’s Day scenario where you repeatedly experience the same twenty-four hours. I mean a real do-over for every single day of my life—basically a 730-day year, only the rest of the world would only know about 365 of them.  A day to undo those things you wished you’d done differently. A day to unsay things you shouldn’t have said. A day to say “no,” when you said “yes” only to realize you’ve been had. A day to say “yes” when made an excuse for not doing the right thing.


Even better, you could avoid that traffic jam by getting up an hour earlier. You could un-send that nasty email you sent your boss.  If you’re monetarily inclined, you could go back and pick the right six numbers for the lottery.  A day to "not eat" that pint of Ben & Jerry's that caused you to gain two pounds--the one before dinner and the one after. You can call Uncle Clyde (or Aunt Tillie, or Cousin IT) and let her/him know how special they are—the day before s/he had that unexpected heart attack. You could remember every single birthday or simply get an extra few hours of sleep.

Basically, you’d have a life with no tension. An existence where you’d never have to worry about messing up, because you could always fix it. A life without regrets. Heaven, right?

Only… would that actually work the way I’m imaging?   Hmmm. There’d be no surprises. And we writers know, without tension and conflict, you have no story. No real growth.

As much as you think you want to be perfect, I’m guessing you really don’t. And as much as you think others want you to be perfect, your friends probably wouldn’t like you as much as they do now. No one loves really loves the supermom, the always "right" exec, or the person who never makes a mistake.  They certainly don’t like the person who wins the lottery and says they’ll keep the current job. Those people make the rest of us feel inferior.

So, I guess I’ve changed my mind. If I could live in any time, I’d live in the here-and-now. And now I feel a bit more content about it.

Happy Wednesday everyone. Here’s to the imperfect day.

3 comments:

Sarah Raplee said...

AWESOME POST, Robin! I love your logic - and the Cousin It photo. You gave me something to think about.

Judith Ashley said...

Well said, Robin. We are the culmination of all of our life experiences so to change any of it, we wouldn't be who we are. One aspect of living in the here and now is the opportunity to change and grow. I may not have a "do over" in terms of today but I always have a "do over" tomorrow.

Maggie Lynch said...

As always, you bring up topics that beg to be considered.

I do think we are a culmination of experiences, both good and not so good. I suspect, if I could always change the past to correct mistakes that I could easily become a sociopath, or at least someone who had little motivation to learn good behavior. With no harm to me for my actions and the ability to correct them if someone complained, I'd be trying all kinds of crazy things just because I could.

It is the consequences of our actions that teach us how to be human. True it also leaves us with lots of baggage, like guilt or fear. But without it I think we would be less careful or caring.

We see some of this today exhibited by certain rich and powerful people who don't take care because they believe they can correct past mistakes with money or other actions that only they can wield. Fortunately, we have a system of laws and investigations that can reach them as well.

If you haven't already, Robin, you might enjoy reading some of Phillip K. Dick's work. In particular, Adjustment Team (short story) where reality is "adjusted" but every adjustment has a consequence because it never happens exactly as intended.