I’m a big Stephen King fan.
I’ve read the entire 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 insistence of several friends who told me this is their favorite book, I finally have started reading 22/11/63.
Here’s the main 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 heartbreakingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent JFK’s assassination – a thousand-page tour de force.
Like any good nerd, I’ve spent way too much brainpower on hypothetical time travel, the butterfly effect, and changing the past. I bet you have too.
Time travel is such an attractive 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 the topic of today’s newsletter.
Accepting that some trails are closed is incredibly liberating.
Some trails are closed
My friend Tim Urban WaitButWhy.com post this chart about the life choices we’ve made until today, and the branching paths that will open up for us tomorrow:
It’s very easy for our brains to hyperfocus on all the black lines of our past: the paths closed to us, the decisions we didn’t make, the decisions we made, and how our lives are often in the moment. certain’ feels.
“Because of the way I did this in the past, that’s just the way it is.”
“It’s a shame I never did XYZ, now it’s too late. I regret it so much!”
“I don’t deserve to be happy because of this mistake I made”
We often forget that it is only possible to connect the dots of our lives when we look back, where we made every decision with the best information we had at the time.
(If you’re looking for a good book, Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library is a thought-provoking fictional story about alternative life paths and acceptance. Haig draws on a past decision to almost commit suicide.)
So let’s talk about those black lines and green possibilities.
Maybe some trails are closed!
I bring up all these things to make two points.
Author Chris Guillbeau, who greatly inspired my love of travel and influenced how I built Nerd Fitness, recently published an essay on celebrate closed doors.
We all know the stories about people who start a certain career later in life.
An example would be, “It’s never too late! Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his breakout role in “Pulp Fiction” until he was 46.”
And Chris points out that sometimes it’s… too late:
While these stories are inspiring, the lesson of “It’s not too late” 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 on to something we know we will eventually do “someday,” and perhaps refuse to accept the reality that… yes, it IS too late.
Maybe we cling to the hope that we’ll eventually run a marathon… even though we hate running.
Maybe we keep hoping that we’ll write that cookbook… even though we don’t really like cooking anymore.
Maybe we can decide that a few paths are closed to us. We can accept this.
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 the story changes.
It’s okay to accept that a dream we had in our 20s might be okay to die.
However, it is just as tragic to assume that “it is too late” to make any change in our future, and that it is already set.
Betrand Russell once said, “You are not obliged to be who you were five minutes ago.”
As Chris says:
It’s not too late for many 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 for specific trails it may be too late, and that’s fine.
In fact, it’s worth celebrating.
Letting go of certain paths, or accepting that some paths are closed to us, can free up the space to make a different decision for the future of life.
You can decide later today to:
- start powerlifting
- take an online class for a new career.
- try a new hobby.
- talk to your doctor about it help with weight loss.
We can’t travel back in time to stop Kennedy’s assassination.
Some paths of life are now closed to us.
That might be okay!
Instead of spending more brainpower lamenting our closed black paths, we can get to work deciding which green path to follow next.
-Steve
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