What would your life be like if...

[~Haze~]

Do you reflect back on decisions you made or didn't make that would have guided your life in a seriously different direction?

What were those decisions? Where do you think you'd be now?


They're not regrets - or they don't have to be regrets.

I've always said that I don't regret any decision I made. Every decision I made, good or bad, contributed to the man I am now and I happy with where the direction I followed.

But for some reason, especially lately, I've been thinking about "those decisions" and wondering....

 

[sb2009]

One of the most pivotal decisions in my life was joining the Army reserve my Freshman year in college. It set of a chain of events that changed the course of my life forever...I went to basic and AIT that summer...our training was extended, so I couldn't return for my sophmore year in Sept, and lost my scholarship. When I got home in October, my living arrangements had fallen through and I was homeless. I got a fulltime job and with crappy public transportation, job + five hours daily on the bus = not able to take many classes.

I cruised for a bit, working my job and living in my one room apt, until I got asked out by a guy in my reserve unit. Within a week he was living with me and running my life. It took several years to fix that situation...sevearl years and a lot of mistakes, etc.

I wonder, what if I had just worked my waitressing job that summer? Had moved into the dorms and finished college? Had done all the dating, etc that other girls did, instead of hooking up with Mr. Wrong and thinking I pretty much had to stay?

The path not taken....

 

[skinnysinner]

Do you reflect back on decisions you made or didn't make that would have guided your life in a seriously different direction?

What were those decisions? Where do you think you'd be now?


They're not regrets - or they don't have to be regrets.

I've always said that I don't regret any decision I made. Every decision I made, good or bad, contributed to the man I am now and I happy with where the direction I followed.

But for some reason, especially lately, I've been thinking about "those decisions" and wondering....

Went back out with a girl I left a year before. The great sex did it, but the control and jealousy I had somehow wiped from the reason bank reappeared very quickly. Took me another two years to work out an exit strategy - a whole host of sexy opportunities passed me by... but, still got good kinky sex on the way. Some you win...

 

[~Haze~]

One of the most pivotal decisions in my life was joining the Army reserve my Freshman year in college. It set of a chain of events that changed the course of my life forever...I went to basic and AIT that summer...our training was extended, so I couldn't return for my sophmore year in Sept, and lost my scholarship. When I got home in October, my living arrangements had fallen through and I was homeless. I got a fulltime job and with crappy public transportation, job + five hours daily on the bus = not able to take many classes.

I cruised for a bit, working my job and living in my one room apt, until I got asked out by a guy in my reserve unit. Within a week he was living with me and running my life. It took several years to fix that situation...sevearl years and a lot of mistakes, etc.

I wonder, what if I had just worked my waitressing job that summer? Had moved into the dorms and finished college? Had done all the dating, etc that other girls did, instead of hooking up with Mr. Wrong and thinking I pretty much had to stay?

The path not taken....

I was going to list 3 or 4 decisions that would have drastically changed where I am now and at the very top of the list was not enlisting.

Of course, there are a few made before this time, but it's best to start at 18 and move forward (not to mention, pre-18 entirely illegal).

And that's what it was... I was 18, it was 1992, I was graduating High School, Operation Desert Storm just got underway and I was sitting at the enlistment office.

I was an 18 year old idealist. Patriotic, brilliant and ready to change the word. I didn't enlist because I felt that I had vision and I felt that vision would be suppressed if I did enlist.

So, instead... I bought my first piece of heavy equipment (actually, it was a street sweeper), started my first business and started working my way through college and business just kept going.

I never did change the world. At least, not yet...
:scratches-head:

 

[unregistered]

 

[insert____here]

so many decisions i've made could have changed my life drastically. i could have been so much more than i am down any one of them. could have had a gold medal, or been in the national orchestra, or owned my own home (no seriously, those three were options, not kidding)

but instead i am me, and this is now. maybe it's for a reason, maybe it isn't. in any case, i know there are still choices to come that can either make it better or worse. and i won't know which until after i've made them. so no point worrying about it really.

besides, i believe in re-incarnation, so i reckon i get to come back and have another crack at it.

 

[Yasashii_Kaze]

One very pivotal decision that comes to mind is when I was 19. I was leaving a college for both financial and curricular reasons and I had two very different directions to take. My sister had asked me to move out west to her and help take care of her kids and around the house until I got settled. On the other hand, I had an offer to move to New England and nanny for a wealthy family there who took regular trips to Europe twice a year and would pay my way to accompany them and care for their children. Looking back, I'm not even sure why, in that current state of mind, I chose my sister's location over New England, but I can't imagine that I could have turned out any happier than I am now.

 

[Primalex]

Do you reflect back on decisions you made or didn't make that would have guided your life in a seriously different direction?

No.

Take sb2009s reality and imagine she spent the time at the college instead.

What did happen in the alternate reality?

- She lived happily with Mr. Right.

- She got raped by some drunk football players.

- She had a deadly car accident driving from Mr. Right back to college.


I like my reality, not because it made me who I am (this phrase is so outdated), but because I know what happened.

 

[chy_girl]

I never did change the world. At least, not yet...
:scratches-head:

Doughnuts to dollars you have made a difference, you just don't know it.

Funny thing is, some of the biggest differences we can make are in the smallest of actions... And there's a good chance we'll never know about them.

 

[MasterPhoenix]

If I were to start focusing on those realities, I would drive myself insane. Fast.

Although... 10/5/06, had I taken the road not traveled.

 

[Lizzie_Borden]

I just wonder where I would be at in life, had I not wasted a number of years trying to fix a situation that was never going to be fixable.

I don't think things would have been too different.. my life just wouldn't have been... delayed, for lack of a better word. I still have the same plans, they're just all put back at least 5 years.

 

[Homburg]

I like my results, so I would not change the path taken to get here.

 

[smallgirl]

Do you reflect back on decisions you made or didn't make that would have guided your life in a seriously different direction?

What were those decisions? Where do you think you'd be now?


They're not regrets - or they don't have to be regrets.

I've always said that I don't regret any decision I made. Every decision I made, good or bad, contributed to the man I am now and I happy with where the direction I followed.

But for some reason, especially lately, I've been thinking about "those decisions" and wondering....

i wonder at times, where i would be if, at age 17, when my stepdad died, if my mom had not forgotten about me? that i still needed her and hadnt make me move to my dad's? that one moment in time, changed my whole life course, and my options.

 

[DVS]

Back in 1972, if I had done what I thought was best (for me), I might have had a better life. Maybe not rich, but I would have at least been happier. Hindsight is 20/20.

Also, in 1977, if that major thunderstorm hadn't come up at the last minute, things might be a lot different in my life. I think Mother Nature was on my parent's side. Fate can be an evil thing.

 

[Lady_Fiona]

If I hadn't got married in 2002.....well it would have been a whole lot different...

 

[the captians wench]

If I hadn't got married in 2002.....well it would have been a whole lot different...

I've considered the same thing (also married in 2002).

But had I not been married, I would have never found lit, and Jounar would have never found me, and that is something I would not jeoperdize in anyway.

 

[Lady_Fiona]

I've considered the same thing (also married in 2002).

But had I not been married, I would have never found lit, and Jounar would have never found me, and that is something I would not jeoperdize in anyway.

I'd still be on lit (I started lurking about 6mos before I married), but I would have been a shit load happier with life.

 

[FurryFury]

I've thought about it a lot. If I had done things differently, recognized and accepted myself as kinky while still a teen, my life would be totally different.

 

[the captians wench]

I'd still be on lit (I started lurking about 6mos before I married), but I would have been a shit load happier with life.

My husband found lit about 3 months before we ended up seperating. While I enjoy my time here and I've grown in my own self awareness and sexuality, this isn't the type of place I would have looked for on my own, so I would not have been likely to find it.

 

[~Haze~]

The timing of this thread is interesting. Whenever asked this question, I've always given the standard answer: "I wouldn't change a thing, my life experiences good and bad have made me the person I am today." For the most part I do believe this, but....

I wronged a person in my past. I honestly think I could change this event and no one could get hurt. I don't think it would change who I am today, but it probably would change his life tremendously. I recently confided in one of my closest friends and he put some perspective on it that I hadn't considered. But, still, if I could go back in time this is what I would change. (I can't share with you here, because it would violate Lit rules as I was a minor).

For the past few weeks I've been exploring this experience through writing and I think it's helping. I've become rather consumed by the "If anything, what would you change" question.

I can appreciate that but I wasn't really thinking from a 'regretting perspective' but just how things would be different.

One of the few true loves of my life contacted me the other day and I started wondering where I might be had I walked a different path now. I don't regret where I am now, just curious what might have been.

 

[~Haze~]

Back in 1972, if I had done what I thought was best (for me), I might have had a better life. Maybe not rich, but I would have at least been happier. Hindsight is 20/20.

Also, in 1977, if that major thunderstorm hadn't come up at the last minute, things might be a lot different in my life. I think Mother Nature was on my parent's side. Fate can be an evil thing.

My thoughts as well. Maybe I'm just approaching things from a different perspective and thinking about how strange fate is. How - over the course of life - a few minutes or a few inches in any direction and your life could be so drastically changed.

Not too long ago, I was talking to this old timer who served in WWII. We were talking for a while about many things and at one point he started talking about D-Day. He was in one of the infantry divisions landing on Omaha Beach and saw a lot of people die. At several points over those few minutes someone within an arm's reach... dies.

That just seems hard to process. Why them? Why not you? 6 inches to the right or the left and what would have been?

 

[CurlyKat]

I've had a couple of major decision points in my life, and I know that had I taken the other choice, life would be vastly different. Probably the biggest I've made thus far was the decision to move overseas immediately after graduating college. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have gotten to really live life in another culture while at an age where I could appreciate the differences and absorb them (Living overseas between the ages of 6-9 doesn't really count for doing too much absorbing and appreciating. Life just was at that point in time.). Chances are I wouldn't have learned many of the career/job related lessons that I had to learn. I'd also probably still be in a job at the moment, too. I would possibly still be living in Texas, or could have married the guy I was into at the time.

Totally different. I wonder what that life would have been like, but don't regret not having chosen that path.

 

[Cattypuss]

Th only thing I would change is that I would NOT have started smoking. It took me 20 years to quit.

 

[~Haze~]

Th only thing I would change is that I would NOT have started smoking. It took me 20 years to quit.

A psychologist specializing in addiction and substance abuse (she was also a hypnotherapist) once told me that nicotine was the most difficult addiction to get over. Including and more addicting than opiates, benzodiazepines, and cocaine.

While I know it's tough, I'm not entirely sure that I agree. But it still makes you think.

 

[misterx1969]

No Regrets

I could have changed some things: but Had I, I would not be where I am now.

A VERY fortuitous set of circumstances came my way, after years of longing

"A whole life came my way, between the water and the dirt"

"If I was dreaming, I would prefer no other life than this"

I met someone, HERE

I love you sunshine!