The idea of time travel fascinates me. I’ve seen far too many movies and television shows related to time machines. In the interest of full disclosure, I believe the past is the past. What has happened has happened. There is no “going back.” It seems to me what matters most is what we do in the present to fix our mistakes and take steps to build a better future. Yet, the question, “If you could go back in time, what would you change?” is worth considering. What would I have done differently? If I had a do-over, what would I do with it?
I’m putting aside the question, “what have you always wanted to do?” because I still have a chance to do at least some of the things I’ve wanted to do for a long time. If there is something I didn’t do in the past, the question of why I didn’t do it looms in the background, and perhaps this is on the itinerary of my train of thought.
I’ve told my wife that maybe I should have stayed in the engineering field rather than music. I suppose if I were to start college again next fall, I would probably become an engineer, not a teacher. I enjoyed my career as a professor and I’m grateful for my experiences with students over the years, but I’m not certain I would want to be in the teaching profession going forward. I’m concerned that teaching has become a minefield besieged by irrational politicians and others who don’t know what they are talking about. “Never attempt to teach a pig to sing,” Robert Heinlein wrote, “it wastes your time and annoys the pig.” As fortunate as I was to cast my pearls of wisdom to some who accepted them, I’m afraid there are too many pigs in charge these days.
Of course, if I had gone back in time and told 18-year-old me to become an engineer, and I had followed that timeline, I wouldn’t have met my beautiful wife of 43 years or had two brilliant children. On the other hand, maybe there is a universe in which this happened. Then, there would also be one in which I went to Annapolis and became a naval officer, and another in which I married my high school girlfriend, and another, and another…the possibilities are endless. The fact is I studied music and became a professor. I don’t think I would change the overall direction of my timeline, even if I could.
My Dad used to tell me to do my job well and the next opportunity would come. This is like the Chinese proverb, “When the student is ready the teacher will appear.” For much of my life I’ve tried to do my best in the hope that my efforts might be rewarded. Sometimes opportunities come to those who are willing to say yes to them. Sometimes not.
In terms of my career, I suppose I could have tried harder to get a new teaching position after I earned my doctorate in the early 1990’s. But then my children might have missed out on opportunities that were unique to our circumstances at the time. Who can tell what could have been? According to Milan Kundera, “We can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.” While we now have the dubious benefit of hindsight, we can take solace that we did what we thought best at the time.
Even if the broad strokes of my life are inscribed on my world-line, there are a few changes I would make if I had the chance to turn back the clock. I can think of times I should have stood up for myself a little more. I was taught to be tactful, but sometimes such subtleties don’t get the point across. Often my deception detector was dead-on, and I shouldn’t have put up with what was being said or done. Not that any of us need to be a jerk, just more willing to confront bad behavior when we see it.
Sometimes I was in too much of a rush, as if what was going to happen later was more important than the present moment. We tell young couples to enjoy their lives with their little children, because all too soon they will be pursuing their own careers and have busy lives of their own. The three-year-old will soon be thirty. We only get to take that ride once.
A big mistake I sincerely wish I could correct was being too hard on those closest to me. After being civil and “professional” on the job all day, often to those who deserved to be called out for their lack of effort or integrity, I was much less patient with my own family. I’ve been told that we can be toughest on those we care about the most. But this is no excuse. For the past 20 years, I’ve been trying to make amends for my own bad behavior.
There are always things we could have done better. But sometimes we don’t understand them until after we’ve done them. In the words of Jose Ortega y Gasset, “We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness: it is always urgent, ‘here and now,’ without any postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank.” While we can’t change the past, we can deal with it in the present. We can learn from our mistakes, and we can do better.
MurrayWorks 