Living in a World of 'What If?'

Do you ever play out scenarios in your mind? Some might call it day dreaming. Perhaps you’ve played out a scene from your favorite movie while you were sleeping or dreamt that you played through a hockey game where you scored the winning goal? We’ve all done it at one point or another. My husband once had a dream so vivid that he literally kicked me in the leg; when I asked him about it the next morning he claimed that he was ‘doing karate’. Dreams are generally make believe, but what if they were real?

 

Analyzing the ‘what if’ of every situation could drive a person crazy. What if you knew right away whether or not you were going to get the job you just interviewed for? What if you knew that the driver of the oncoming car was going to run the red light and hit you? What if you knew when a deer was going to run haphazardly out into oncoming traffic? What if you knew you were going to have a heart attack next Tuesday? What if you were gossiping about someone and didn’t know they were standing right behind you and could hear every word you were saying?

If you could answer all the ‘what ifs’ ahead of time would you live your life differently? Would you eat healthier and exercise more to avoid next week’s heart attack? Would you be a more cautious driver and try to anticipate the behavior of the other drivers? Would you stop and ask yourself if you should really gossip about someone before you said anything?

We may never know the answers to the ‘what ifs’, but maybe we should try living our lives as if we could. What do you think? Would you do anything different? Have you ever had a pivotal moment in your life when you wished you would have know the answer to the ‘what if’ first?