Don't Take That Exit

 As I've been trundling down the metaphorical road on which I'm currently travelling, there has been considerable temptation to take certain detours. You know the ones: there are all those glossy bright billboards, spaced carefully so that just when you have nearly forgotten about the advertised roadside attraction, LOOK, there's another reminder, every few miles along the highway. So very tempting. Should I go look? I wonder what's there? The signs make it seem so alluring.  Surely I could use a rest stop, why not use that location for a break? 

The exits are all clearly marked. You see them. They all promise a detour down a path never before taken, to the Land of:

WHAT IF....

No. Don't go to What If Land. 

Just don't.

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We are all where we are on the path of Life because of the forks in the road behind us. And we chose the options we did, with the knowledge we had at the time, and we have done the best we could. To spend time with the What If of, What if I had chosen differently, is a fruitless endeavor, because we would not be who we are now. Time -- as we understand it -- is a one-way road. Keep moving forward. We look back to understand, not to change the road. We change the road only looking forward. 

To contemplate the What Ifs involving other people is even more obscure. What If That Person Were [Characteristic that they do not possess]? Well, they would not be who they are. And we would not likely have encountered them in the same way that we have, because they would be an entirely different person in that situation. People are the way they are. We cannot change them. We cannot hope that they be different from how they are. We can only change how we interact with them.  Like the road -- we can only change forward, not backward. 

It is far too easy to get stuck in a sea of fruitless wishes in What If Land. People drown there. We should not wish for what never was. 

So let's focus on what's ahead. Ignore those WHAT IF billboards. Don't take the exit to What If Land.  Stay the course. Contemplate backward only to understand your beginnings, and then look forward to understand where your future lies. 

Let us try.