It's good to look back over 45 years of living an have no significant regrets. Sure, I could have done this or that better, but what's living without mistakes? My regrets are perhaps not few, but are small in the grand scheme.
Things I Would Do Differently:
- Probably nothing. - Without the benefit of foreknowledge, a skill I have always been lacking, I would probably make the same decisions over again, or make worse ones.
I often wonder what my life would be like had I done things differently. We all do that, don't we?
The Butterfly Effect was a good movie, in my opinion, because it looked at the time travel thing from a different perspective. For every mistake that he corrected, the results cascaded down through time, changing everything else. Other problems, usually worse than the initial one, cropped up. He would go back again and try to correct that one and the same thing would happen again. Eventually, he goes back in time to kill himself (actually to allow himself to die in an accident). This, he figures, will fix everything.
The best perspective comes from another movie, 13 Going on 30--not exactly a movie men like to admit to enjoying, but entertaining none the less. The heroine asks her mother
something like this: "If you had a chance toredo your life, what would you do differently?" Her mother responds, "Nothing. If you don't make mistakes, then you couldn't learn how to make things right."The imperfection we make in our lives creates contrast with the perfection we long for but can't reach. Contrast, in life as well as in photography, makes things look richer. Ever wonder what the histogram of your life would look like?
