Morning dear friends and family. Sending you virtual hugs. As we close out 2020, many of us may wonder how our lives may have been different had there not been a pandemic. So, I’ll ask, what if you could start the year over, would you? There is no right or wrong answer, and all perspectives are welcome.
This is a year that the phrase ‘the grass is greener on the other side’ would certainly be true when compared to previous years. Many lost their lives. People became ill. People lost jobs. Kids were pulled from schools. Life flipped us over and tossed us up like pizza dough. But the end result hasn’t necessarily left us with a desirable taste in our mouths.
All of it is heart-breaking. All of this chaos matters. Infinitely. We must care for one another. We are our best selves when we lift each other up. And, we must care for ourselves.
If any of you remember the movie Sliding Doors that came out in 1998, Gwyneth Paltrow’s life was dramatically different based on her catching (or not catching) a train. In short, we saw the two different life scenarios in action. In the end, the better life scenario for her, came to fruition in a more heart-wrenching way.
Wondering how our lives may have been different is not a new phenomenon. Thoughts like these can be motivating or upsetting. This article from The New Yorker: What if You Could Do It All Over Again? suggests “we should sink deeper into the life we have, rather than dreaming of the lives we don’t.” And I agree. What do you think?
The article above goes on to say “On the one hand, we understand that we could have turned out any number of ways; we know that we aren’t the only possible versions of ourselves. But, on the other, we feel that there is some fundamental light within us—a filament that burns, with its own special character, from birth to death. We want to think that, whoever we might have been, we would have burned with the same light.” Therefore, no matter the life circumstance, each of our individual, special lights burn in any life scenario. What are your thoughts on free will bound by a consistent spark?
In conclusion, the ‘what ifs’ will remain just that. In other words, there is no way to know how our lives would have been different if we hadn’t faced certain challenges. So we must embrace the now. Living our lives, I mean really living our lives, will be full of trees and their changing leaves, uncertainty being the only certainty.
Since this is a bookish blog, I’ll leave you with a previous post for some great books I read in 2020.
Thank you for stopping by my little corner of the webosphere. What if you could start the year over, would you?
And how will you be ringing in 2021? I’d love to know.
Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year and a life well-lived. Blog you soon!