12.3.12

Do you ever wonder what life would be like if you had never met one specific person?  Or if one event in your life didn't occur?  It's fascinating to me how we are shaped by those around us, the space we occupy, and the defining moments of our lives.

Imagine that you never met your best friend.  Not that they don't exist, but that you just don't know them.  Or maybe you do, but they are just an acquaintance.  Imagine passing by them in the grocery store and not giving a second thought to that person that, on another Earth, you've spent countless hours.  The person with which you have hundreds of inside jokes that weave in and out of your day, every single day.  The person that has cried on your shoulder and has been right by your side each time you've needed them; the person that has made you strong enough to stand there on your own.  Imagine your life without that person.

He, too, stood looking at her for a moment--and it seemed to her that it was not a look of greeting after an absence, but the look of someone who had thought of her every day of that year. She could not be certain, it was only an instant, so brief that just as she caught it, he was turning...

-          Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

 

Think back to an event (or maybe a series of events) that occurred in your life.  Something that changed your life.  Maybe it was a death in your family or of a friend.  Maybe it was a move to a different city.  Maybe it was a career change.  My life was forever changed about 8 years ago when I made the conscious decision to stop doing one thing and start doing another.  Because of that, I've met lifelong friends.  I essentially started two careers.  It's been a long and winding road, but everything I have in my life, I can trace back to making that one choice.  Now, what if I hadn't done that?  Think of your event.  Would you still be the person you are today?  If yours is anything like mine, I doubt it.

I think about this stuff a lot.  Maybe more than I should.  But it's important, I think, to remember where we were.  To remember where you came from and where you are now.  I try to think of life as a river with endless tributaries; that every choice you have has an outcome, and each outcome has a different set of new choices.

I think about these things, not to ponder "what if's".  But to be thankful of the things that I have.  Of the life that I could be living, given the alternatives.  I do it to remind myself that everything is more important than I can imagine.

J. Vess