I’m a huge Stephen King fan.
I’ve read the whole Dark Tower Series, It, The Shining, Doctor Sleep, and my favorite movie ever is based on his novella, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
So, at the behest of multiple friends who told me it’s their favorite book, I finally started reading 11/22/63.
Here’s the head-exploding premise:
On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed.
What if you could change it back?
Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force.
Like every good nerd, I’ve dedicated way too much brainpower to hypothetical time-travel, the butterfly effect, and changing the past. I bet you have too.
Time-travel is such an alluring idea because our brains can’t help but think about “the road less traveled” and “what if I had done X instead of Y?”
Which brings me to today’s newsletter topic.
Accepting that some paths are closed is incredibly freeing.
Some Paths are Closed
My friend Tim Urban over at WaitButWhy.com put out this graph about the life choices we’ve made up until today, and the branching paths open to us tomorrow:
It’s really easy for our brains to hyperfocus on all the black lines in our past: the paths closed to us, the decisions we didn’t make, the decisions we made and how our life often feels “determined” right now.
“Because of how I did this in the past, that’s just how things are.”
“It’s a shame I never did XYZ, now it’s too late. I have so much regret!”
“I don’t deserve to be happy because of this mistake I made”
We often forget that it’s only possible to connect the dots of our life looking backward, in which we made every decision with the best information we had at the time.
(If you’re looking for a solid read, Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library is a thought-provoking fictional story about alternate life paths and acceptance. Haig draws from a past decision to almost take his own life.)
So let’s talk a bit about those black lines and green possibilities.
Maybe Some Paths ARE Closed!
I bring all of this stuff up to make two points.
Author Chris Guillbeau, who heavily inspired my love of travel and influenced how I built Nerd Fitness, put out an essay recently about celebrating closed doors.
We’ve all heard the stories about people who start certain careers later in life.
An example would be, “It’s never too late! Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his breakthrough role in “Pulp Fiction” until age 46.”
And Chris points out that sometimes…it IS too late:
While these stories are inspiring, the “it’s not too late” lesson is not universal. Sometimes it IS too late! To believe otherwise is to believe in a fantasy.
Some things in life have real deadlines—not all, but some.
In other words, sometimes we often hold onto something that we know we’ll eventually do “some day,” and maybe we are refusing to accept the reality that…yeah, it IS too late.
Maybe we keep holding onto hope that we’ll eventually run a marathon…even though we hate running.
Maybe we keep holding onto hope that we’re going to write that cookbook…even though we don’t actually like cooking anymore.
Maybe we can decide that a few paths ARE closed to us. We can accept this.
The Future isn’t Set in Stone either
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how The Past isn’t Set in Stone, because our perception of the story changes.
It’s okay to accept that maybe a dream we had when we were in our 20s is okay to die.
However, it’s equally tragic to assume that “it’s too late” to make any changes in our future, and that it’s already determined.
Betrand Russel once said “You’re under no obligation to be who you were five minutes ago.”
As Chris says:
“It’s not too late” for lots of things, and that’s great. But sometimes it is, and that’s okay.
It’s not too late to learn something new. It’s not too late to try new things.
But it might be too late for specific paths, and that’s perfectly fine.
In fact, it’s worth celebrating.
Letting go of certain paths, or accepting that some paths might be closed to us can clear the space to make a different decision for life moving forward.
You can decide that later today to:
- start powerlifting
- take an online class for a new career.
- try a new hobby.
- talk with your doctor about weight loss help.
We can’t travel back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination.
Some of life’s paths are now closed to us.
That might be okay!
Instead of spending more brainpower regretting our closed black paths, we can get to work on deciding which green path we’re going to take next.
-Steve
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