Some nights I think myself into insomnia. I replay an event or decision over and over in my head. Maybe something that happened that day. Maybe something that happened a decade ago. Had I done it differently, what would of happened? Where would I be now? I can’t help but to ruminate piled up regrets and to wish for Doc Brown’s DeLorean.

The multiverse (or meta-universe) is the hypothetical set of possible universes, including the universe in which we live. Together, these universes comprise everything that exists: the entirety of space, time, matter, energy, and the physical laws and constants that describe them.

Of course, I have hindsight bias towards the mistakes that I’ve made in life. I know now what I should or shouldn’t have done. However, chaos theory tells us that small alterations can give rise to strikingly great consequences. I often think about changing my past as if it would guarantee me a better future.

Which begs the questions: What qualifies as a mistake? There are some unfortunate events that leads to better and often unexpected results.

Decisions trumps results

In a poker game the results of one hand matter less than how it was played. If you read someone wrong, made bad decisions and still managed to win a big pot, it wasn’t a good play just because of the result. It was luck and you just dodged a bullet. Poker players knows that in the long run making the right decisions is more profitable than luck. Never mind that hand you laid down post flop when you had a 1% chance to hit a runner-runner. It doesn’t matter that after you folded you saw the river and realized you’d hit your nut flush. I doesn’t matter that you would’ve won the pot. Laying them down was the right decision at the time. Life, as well as a poker game, is a string of decisions. Don’t get discouraged if a right decision leads to a bad immediate result.

World of illusions

What’s the use of fantasizing about a time machine when the results of time tampering aren’t a guaranteed improvement? Furthermore the act of fantasizing about the past or future is a waste of a perfectly good present.

I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is — Allan Watts

So why spend time and energy on illusions that can amount to depression and anxiety? There’s a christian proverb that says “God writes straight with crooked lines.” Which is an interesting idea to me. It’s meant to represent what faith is. The faith I have come to realize that there are no other timelines which I am a part of. There’s only this life and the now. All we can do is make the best out of every moment and keep moving forward. Derek Sivers shared a fable on his blog that illustrates this idea wonderfully. It shows how separating fortunes into good and bad can be an exercise in futility.

塞翁失马 — Blessing in disguise

Different timelines and parallel universes may very well exist. But we live in only one and we know only one. The darkest timeline and the enlightenment path entwined. The balance in which these two extremes exists in your life is up to you. In your every decision you will swing towards one or the other.

Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made — Wayne Dyer

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