UNITED STATES—If you were given the opportunity to manipulate time would you use it to your advantage? Think about that question for a moment. Most of us automatically say no as it directly impacts the future, but haven’t there been a few things in your life that you wish you could have a do-over?
I think we all would consider the option if it arose, rather we would actually go through with changing perhaps a vital element in our life is to be debated. Righting a wrong or doing something that you wish you had done in the past are all tempting to the human psyche.
Don’t act as if you’ve never thought ‘what if,’ ‘why not,’ or ‘what impact’ would previous behaviors or actions have on my life? Perhaps the thing that scares us most is what impact our decision would have on the people that we care about most. Would making a change in our past lives significantly alter the relationships with the people that we have come to love and respect in the present?
Even scarier is the possibility that altering the past could directly eliminate a person we’ve become fond of today from our lives completely. Paths that should be crossed would never cross.
When we think of time travel the focus always reverts back to the past, instead of the future. Hmm, I wonder why that might be something of debate. If we could flash forward to 5 or 6 years into the future and see our lives would that prompt one to alter or make an adjustment in the present to prevent ‘destiny’ as so many of us call it?
I think I find myself a bit more intrigued by the prospect of seeing the future. We’ve always been told that altering the past impacts the present, but seeing the future allows one to perhaps prevent something from happening that should have never happened or to change the course of something that we want to possibly happen.
Changing the past is more about making one feel better about themselves, altering the future is more about focusing one’s attention on accomplishing a particular goal: a job, a family, preventing a catastrophe. Yeah, plenty of these things we see from time to time in movies involve changing the future; it’s a common theme. Rarely do we see those films really tackle the issue of altering things in the past.
I think an even more interesting question about altering the past, would be the opportunity to see EXACTLY what impact that would have on the present and the future. Imagine if we could actually see the direct impact of our actions in altering time, would that make one more susceptible to consider the risk if presented the opportunity. Plenty of us say, we would never alter the past or future, but I would say hold giving an answer until the actual option is presented to us. It totally changes everything if it is a possibility.
