Day 13: No Regrets!

I found it interesting that when I did a search for songs titled similarly to this post, at least 13 popped up by different artists. Methinks perhaps they all protest too much.

In any event, this post is about my regrets--or rather, that I really don't think about the past in that way. I have always tried to live my life like it was a series of choices. I work really hard to be careful and considered in making my choices, and I think the result of this is that once the choice is made, I'm done pondering it. I don't really go back and visit it again (unless there's new information or circumstances change which warrant such action). Having said that, there are times when I wonder where a different choice might have taken me. For example...

I wonder what might have happened if I'd accepted that interpreting job for Cirque du Soleil. They wanted someone who was available around the clock, and I was teaching and building a graphic arts business at the time. I just didn't feel like it was worth my time to put that aside to work for what at the time was a little-known, out-on-the-edge entertainment.

I wonder where I'd be if I'd actually gone to Hawaii. I had applied to grad school at the University of Hawaii to study linguistics. I had been accepted and I only needed to finalize the money (they had a fellowship available that would have made it practically free to study there). Those of you who know me will understand when I say that if I had actually made it to Hawaii, I would never have come back stateside. It's the weather. And the beaches. And sure, Polynesian girls are nice, too. Is my wife reading this?

I wonder how things might have gone if I'd not applied for (and then received) the credit card with the $1,000 limit that was just enough for me to take an Amtrak tour around the country before I left for Hawaii--a trip during which Wifeness and I decided to see what might happen if we took our friendship of several years in a new direction. The deal Amtrak was offering at the time was a 30-day pass: You could go anywhere in the country they had tracks for a month, and you could stop up to 3 times. I chose to go to San Diego to see friends of mine for a couple of days, then head to New Orleans (I'd never been to New Orleans, and wanted to see it at a time when it wasn't in the throes of Mardi Gras). After that, it was up to New England. I hadn't been back East since I'd moved to Las Vegas, and I wanted to connect with people I missed. Wifeness was one such person. She and I had been corresponding regularly since I'd moved, and I was very much looking forward to seeing her again. The story of what led us to the place of moving past friendship is a story in itself, but if I hadn't made the trip it certainly never have come to pass as it did.

I wonder what my world view would be like if I had not chosen to study Buddhism. I didn't become exposed to Buddhism until I was in college and didn't study it with any sort of seriousness until I was in my twenties, but it has had an undeniable effect on me. I remember what my thinking was like when I was seriously investigating Christianity in my teens, and it was very different. Not better or worse; but different.

I wonder how small the world might be if I'd not chosen to travel as much as I did when I was younger, or if I'd chosen not to settle down and start a family. I don't get the chance to globetrek as much now as I did before the children arrived, but I still get itchy feet on a regular basis. Without having gone so far afield, though, I cannot imagine how many stories I would not have, how many special moments I would not have experienced and how many truly wonderful people I would not have met in my lifetime.

What, I wonder, do you wonder about?