What if you had the ability to go back in time and change the future? What if you were told of your upcoming successes and failures, accomplishments and mistakes – and the friends and lovers that you will gain and lose in the next five years – and were now given the opportunity to change those future events any way you saw fit – would you do it?

Frequently I wonder what would happen if someone were to go back in time to when I was nineteen years old and give me a copy of all of the pennies that I have written. In doing so, they would give me a blueprint of my future. After reading the columns I have “not yet written” – I would know what would happen to me before it would happen – and if I wanted to, I could now change whatever event I desired.

Maybe I would decide that when the day came that I met Lisa, I would not ask her to come in for an interview because I would now know that in the future, I would have to take her to court to get my own stuff back after we broke up. Perhaps I would decide not to take the job at The Brooklyn Daily Eagle because after reading my own words, I’d find out that he just hired me for my contacts and then fired me after he got them. Or possibly I might not want to marry Elisabeth because I would now know that my future marriage would eventually end in divorce. The possibilities are endless.

But what would happen if I change my future? All of the experiences I have had, both good and bad, all of the things that have happened to me throughout the course of my life would not happen – and the life I lead now would not exist – because when you change your life, you change your path in life. So in all actuality, the book would be an work of fiction rather then fact – and a new and entirely different book would be written.

Personally, I am happy with the path that my life has taken so far. Whether the events that have occurred in my life were positive or negative, happy or unhappy – or successful or unsuccessful – I enjoyed experiencing them. The positive events made me enjoy the hard work and happy life I that have built – and the negative experiences made me learn from my mistakes and ensure that I would be a little more cautious in the future.

So if someone came up to me and offered to give me a blueprint of my life – I would tell them to keep it. After all – it’s more fun walking down the road of life when you don’t know where you’re going.

“If I could go back and start over somehow,
I would not change that much knowing what I know now.”
Billy Joel – Getting Closer