The world of what if is always an imaginary world

​A friend told me a story about visiting her old college last weekend. She hadn't been back there in many years. She said it made her wonder what life would have been like if she'd never left there. A place of great joy and fulfillment.

Would I have been a happier person if I'd never left there?

She asked if I ever go there, to the land of what if. I told her what if used to be my home address. But, I went on to tell her, what if is almost always an unhealthy place for me. So these days I quickly move from what if to what now.

I suppose we all have turning point decisions in our lives. Decisions we can look back on and feel more equipped today to judge those choices as good or bad. We now know for sure what life looked like in the aftermath of those choices.

The reality is, though, we have no idea what life would have looked like if our decisions would have been different. We don't EVER get to know what the alternative reality would have been.

We can only guess.

When we get to spending too much time assuming life would have gone in a healthier direction if we'd made different decisions, we are prone to spend a lot of time beating ourselves up for past decisions. Beating ourselves up, assuming we deserve the beating without any reasonable proof of that.

The energy we pour into speculating about past choices is always better used deciding what to do now. We have less than zero control over the what ifs in our lives. But we are the only ones who have any control at all over what now.

Even if you get to a place of knowing I absolutely should have made a different choice back then, you NEVER get to go back and make that choice. Never. But in this place called what now, when you decide what it is you need to do right now, you ALWAYS get to make that choice.

Maybe that's the value in those what ifs. If you know you would have done something different knowing what you know right now, well maybe that is some wisdom that can be applied to the what now choices in life.

Maybe I can't make a different decision about back then, but knowing I would have might help me make a good decision right now.

What is never a good decision, though, is spending a lot of time wrestling with those what ifs. It's never a good decision spending a lot of time imagining yourself in the world you are imagining would have been very different if you'd have been smarter or wiser or better.

Because that world is just that, an imaginary world.

So leave that world behind. Return to what now. The real world. The place where the future you imagine is entirely possible. The place where your decisions are in front of you, not in your rear view mirror.

If you get to wrestling with what if, remind yourself that you no longer live there. And forward that conversation to what now.

What now, that is the healthiest place to live.