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WHY OR WHY NOT

Friday Feb. 5, 2016

Choices made today, what you do today, or what you won’t, where you’ll go, or where you won’t. Who you’ll see or call. Or who you won’t.

If we’d done something different, said YAY more, instead of NAY. Not every time, but more often – if we’d reached out, stayed in touch, or considered just one more alternative – our life would look completely different.

At 16?

How about yesterday?

If those choices were early? Earlier still? Earliest ones were made for us, not to program us, yet limiting our world view rather than expanding it. If we knew then, what we know now …

If I’d stayed in touch with him, or with her …?

If I’d done that, stayed with that, not given up on that?

Just imagine …

We always sit here – poised, on this cliff edge overlooking worlds of possibilities, ‘where could I go?’ is not the most pressing question for me. What could I do? What might matter? What difference could I make? What value is my life, my time, my energy?

I hold no bitterness or regret, but I wonder where I would be today if someone had encouraged me to ask those questions at: 5, 16, 21, 25, 39 …

That list of ‘what if?’ and ‘when?’ questions could run for days …

What we have instead – each of us – is the question of what we see today and what we do tomorrow. Our view through the rearview mirror is open to interpretation, of course, but nothing changes no matter how far we go back, no matter what we might have done.

Change why to why not?

 

Mark Kolke

written / published from Calgary, AB

morning walk:  4C/39F and a lovely day unfolding - skimpy clouds, light breeze and lots of dry walks; Gusta trotting a little faster this morning – as was I, rested and ready for a full day ...


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