I’m a huge Stephen King fan.
I’ve read the entire Dark Tower series, It, The Shining, and Doctor Sleep, and my favorite film of all is based on his novella. Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
At the behest of several friends who told me it was their favorite book, I finally did it started reading 11/22/63.
Here’s the mind-blowing premise:
On November 22, 1963, three shots were fired in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed.
What if you could change it again?
Stephen King’s heartbreakingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK – a thousand-page tour de force.
Like any good nerd, I spent way too much brain power on hypothetical time travel, the butterfly effect, and changing the past. I bet you did too.
Time travel is such a tempting idea because our brains can’t help but think about “the road less traveled” and “What if I had done X instead of Y?”
That brings me to today’s newsletter topic.
Accepting that some paths are closed is incredibly liberating.
Some paths are closed
My friend Tim Urban over there WaitButWhy.com Create this graphic about the life choices we have made to date and the branching paths open to us tomorrow:
It’s really easy for our brains to focus on all the black lines in our past: the paths that are closed to us, the choices we didn’t make, the choices we did make, and how our lives are going right now now often feels “determined”.
“Because of the way I’ve done it in the past, that’s just how things are.”
“It’s a shame I never did XYZ, it’s too late now. I regret it so much!”
“I don’t deserve to be happy because of this mistake I made”
We often forget that the only way to connect the dots of our lives is to look back and make each decision with the best information we had at the time.
(If you’re looking for a solid read, Matt Haig’s book is the way to go The Midnight Library is a thought-provoking fictional story about alternative life paths and acceptance. Haig draws from a past Decision to almost take his own life.)
So let’s talk a little bit about these black lines and green possibilities.
Maybe some paths are closed!
I bring all of these things up to make two points.
Author Chris Guillbeau, who greatly inspired my love of travel and influenced the way I built Nerd Fitness, recently published an essay about it Celebrate closed doors.
We’ve all heard the stories of people starting certain careers later in life.
An example would be, “It’s never too late! “Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his breakthrough in Pulp Fiction until he was 46.”
And Chris points out that sometimes it IS too late:
Although these stories are inspiring, the lesson “It’s not too late” doesn’t apply to everyone. Sometimes it’s 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 on to something that we know we will do “someday” and perhaps we refuse to accept the reality that… yes, it IS too late.
Maybe we hold on to the hope that we’ll eventually run a marathon… even if we hate running.
Maybe we’ll continue to hold on to the hope that we’ll write that cookbook… even if we don’t actually like cooking anymore.
Maybe we can decide that some paths are closed to us. We can accept that.
The future is not set in stone either
A few weeks ago I wrote about how The past is not set in stonebecause our perception of history changes.
It’s okay to accept that maybe it’s okay to die a dream we had when we were in our twenties.
However, it is equally tragic to assume that it is “too late” to make changes to our future and that it has already been determined.
Betrand Russel once said, “You are not obligated to be who you were five minutes ago.”
As Chris says:
For many things, “It’s not too late,” 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 certain paths, and that’s totally fine.
In fact, it’s worth celebrating.
Letting go of certain paths or accepting that some paths may be closed to us can create the space to make a different decision for the rest of life.
You can decide that later today:
- Start powerlifting
- Take an online course for a new career.
- Try a new hobby.
- Talk to your doctor about it Help with losing weight.
We can’t go back in time to prevent Kennedy’s assassination.
Some paths in life are now closed to us.
That might be okay!
Instead of spending even more brain power regretting our closed black paths, we can get to work and decide which green path we will take next.
-Steve
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