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If you could turn back the time, if you could change, undo or merely do more in the past, would you?
Turning back time, at first glance, seems wonderful. You could turn back the time every morning and get more sleep. You could erase every embarrassing thing that you have ever done. You could kiss the boy/girl whom you always wish you could but never did.
Yet, when pressing rewind on the time line, what would the results be.
If you could go back and change certain moments, alter them, what would your future look like? If I went back to yesterday and helped that stranger carry their groceries, would they one day leave me their inheritance? Would their lives have been changed? Would you be able to, in some way, stop your parents from divorcing, your dog from dying, your childhood friend from moving? It doesn't sound very realistic. I mean not all things are up to you.
But then, what if you could go back and UNDO the past? What if some things just never happened? What would happen if I never kissed Antoni Becker, who later broke my fragile, little heart? Would my heart go back to being fragile? Will undoing the past not ultimately change who we are in the present? We are, after all, the sum of our circumstances. If the "future is composed of nows" as John Green said, the "now" must surely be composed of the past. So by undoing the past, you will be undoing your future as well? Personally, undoing my present is not a risk that I am willing to take.
So, if I do not want to undo my past, could I simply go back and do more? I could jog more as a child and maybe teach present me to enjoy sports more. I could explore more, make more friends, spend fewer holidays reading in my room. Terminally ill people could once more do so many things for the last time, yet this time KNOWING that it will be their last. People with heart disease could go back and live healthier lives. But then the question is: if we go back in time, will we know that we are from the future and do all the things that we have come to do? Or will we be oblivious and merely live life exactly as we did the first time? And will we not try to use our infinite time to create a way to go visit the "future"? Will we not then merely be stuck in a loop between the past and the present?
Yet not all that is done can be undone. Not all things can be changed. Not all things SHOULD be changed. And why we not rather do more in the present than in the past? Who we are is the sum of our existence. How we think, how we act and react, who we love is all due to how we have lived - or rather all that we have lived through.
Will being able to turn back the time, not just become another excuse not to do more or a justification for procrastination?
We feel like we need more time. For we have so much that has to be done and we have so much to achieve and accomplish. Or we just stand in one place, forever regretting the past and leaving the future for "later".
Why are there only extremes and no balance? Is redoing the past really the answer?
If you could turn back the time, would you? Or would you rather spend your time on composing the future?
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