[ThaVirus]

Originally Posted by Bearcat

Probably the biggest thing though would be wishing I had put more effort towards knowing my grandparents and many extended family members more so when I was younger... I was pretty antisocial growing up and my immediate family really only saw extended family at holidays (definitely didn't come from the outgoing wing of the family). As I got a bit older, I definitely could have put more effort towards those relationships (one example, my mom had a big falling out with her mom, so I didn't see my grandmother for years growing up. I saw her while I was working at a restaurant when I was ~16 or 17 and she told me "just so you know, you can always stop by anyway"... ). Grandparents have passed, as well as some other extended family members.

Damn, that hit me. Poor gran..

On a similar note, back when I was in college I had an aunt reach out to me via Facebook. This would have been back when everyone and their mom was joining FB to keep in touch. I hadn’t seen her in years so she was just like “Call me so we can catch up”. I told her I was a little busy but I’d give her a call soon. I never made calling her a priority, a few months passes, and she died unexpectedly to pneumonia. I felt terrible.

Then a few years later I had a great uncle pass from cancer. It was a drawn out battle in which he basically wasted away, according to my grandma. I wanted to give him a call but it always sounded like he was pretty weak and had his hands full as it were so I never called. Fast forward maybe a year or so after he passes, I randomly went through my message requests on Facebook and I had one from him, reaching out to me. That shit made me sick. I don’t know why the **** that message never came through to me.

I really wish I could go back and change the outcomes there.

Originally Posted by Rain Man

In recognition of the butterfly effect, I think an interesting alternative to the 'regrets' question is this: if you could see a magical YouTube video that documents your life in an alternate reality where you made a pivotal decision, what fork in the road would you choose as your starting point?

I don't know if it's a good idea to even watch such a magical video, but it would be really interesting. A lot of us, or likely all of us, have made decisions that put our lives on a fundamentally different course compared to making a different choice. It would be weird to see myself with perhaps a different wife (though we've already confirmed that the universe set me on an irreversible course to my current wife) and a different job and maybe kids and living in a different place.

I would be interested in seeing the results of three different forks in the road.

Fork 1. When I was eighteen, I was going to be an architect. No question about it. That was the plan. Then my high school had a career day. I went to the architect's talk, and heard how it was not a great job and it paid low, and all the cool stuff you see about being an architect is fiction. I then went down the hall where an engineer told us how fantastic engineering was and how it paid great, so my plan changed on that day. I'd like to see how my life would have turned out if I had stayed home sick that day in high school.

Fork 2. When I was eighteen, I won a full-ride four-year scholarship to my dream college. I was stoked. I was all in. Then a couple of really bad things happened, and I couldn't go. Both were out of my control, so it really hurt to give that up. I'd be interested in watching the video of my life in a scenario where I was able to do that.

Fork 3. This one is more of a lark because I didn't really consider it seriously. But it would be a great video to watch to see how far off my life path I could have wandered. When I was graduating college, the Navy was hiring engineers to run nuclear reactors on submarines and aircraft carriers, and I found it really intriguing. I didn't have the gumption to do it, but I wonder how my life would have progressed if I had jumped out of my normalcy to do it.

I wouldn't trade any of these alternate lives for my current life, but it would be fun to see how they would have turned out.

Ohhhh, yes. I think about this pretty frequently, actually, though it is tough to settle on what exactly you consider pivotal. Personally, I think you could argue that damn near any decision made about who your friends are, who you date, the job you take, school you go to, etc. could be considered pivotal. All of those will literally change the course of your life.

To make it easy, I would say..

Fork 1: Trying to figure out what to do with my life. I graduated high school at 17 with no concrete life plans. At that time, I had no job, no car, no money, and wasn't enrolled in secondary education. I ended up getting a restaurant job to get my money up, took a gap year, then did the traditional four-year college thing..

But my dad was pressuring me heavily to join the military. I never had any desire to join and always felt like he was just trying to get me out of the house. I also never liked the ides of being what amounts to government property. They tell you where to go, what to do, all that. I wanted some autonomy. In retrospect, I think he just had some remorse for leaving after only 8 years and wanted to live vicariously through me in a way. I remember when he turned, like, 38, which would have been right around the time I graduated high school, he’d always talk about how he could retire now if he'd only stayed in. He always said he loved it.

In my early 20s I knew quite a few people who chose the military path. Some were stationed in really awesome places like San Diego, Hawaii, Japan, etc. Maybe I wouldn’t have been that lucky but who knows? Even if I hated it, I could have left after 4 years. I’d have been 22 with a great resume addition and a GI bill to pay for school.

Fork 2: Still trying to figure out what to do with my life. Like I mentioned, I did the four-year college thing. That’s totally fine, but I’d like to see it done differently. Long story short, I worked full time throughout school. I didn’t have a plan so I started by taking Gen Ed classes. I got my Associate’s at the local community college, then transferred to UCF to finish. In doing so, I had to pick my major and just went with Poli Sci since it most closely matched the classes I’d already taken. I didn’t choose the pre-law track and I didn’t want to get into politics so from the jump, I didn’t make the optimal choice. That’s landed me in some roles/industries I’m not fond of.

A major fork is that I had a good friend who joined a nursing program right around the time I was transferring to the university. She told me I should sign up so we could do it together. She became a nurse, did that for a few years, and is now a nurse practitioner. I’d like to see an alternate reality where I took her up on her offer.

Fork 3: I seriously considered breaking up with my wife back about 1 year into our relationship.

10 years later we’re still together and doing well but it would be interesting to see an alternate reality where I ended the relationship.

Originally Posted by Bearcat

In college, a buddy of mine got an internship at DisneyWorld along with several other people... I didn't get it and was pretty bitter about it at the time. I don't think life would have turned out better, but it would be interesting to see it play out (my buddy never left Disney; guessing I would have after one summer, since the initial intern was mostly just amusement park labor and had zilch to do with IT.. but who knows, maybe just the name on a resume would have helped, too)."

The Disney College Program! I have so many memories from the other side of that. I’m local so during my fun college years, that program was in full swing. So many girls rotating through that program every few months lol

Don’t mean to rub it in or anything but you would have had a ****ing blast. Those people were wild.