If you could travel back in time and change one event (in your life) ... ?

That doesn't sound too optimistic. You doing ok?

 

Life in a northern town. Probably just cabin fever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O17MA58P-QY

 

LOVE that song.

 

No big event-changing for me. As has been said, everything led me to where I am and I'm sitting pretty now. i even parlayed that $37-for-a-20-hour-day at the Y camp directly into the gig I have now, and I'm absolutely content where I am.

But, and I recently went over this with my oldest and dearest friend, I wish I'd had the nerve in high school to stand up to the class bully. His name was Scott and he never bothered me, but I distinctly remember one day he was picking on the new, quiet kid. Scott was being an ass and the kid was trying to avoid confrontation, but Scott kept harassing him. This was maybe ninth grade. I even remember which classroom it was and where I was sitting.

I hadn't thought about either of those two people for 20something years, but, talking with my friend, it hit me that I missed an opportunity to do the right thing

At the time, i was just trying to fit in. i didn't go along with it, but I knew it was wrong and I allowed it to happen. I regret that now, and, knowing what I know now, I'd like to go back in time and kick Scott's ass. My life would be no different, but the world might be a better place.

 

I would have told my best friend, "o, I don't want to work at a fireworks store for you all summer long in this, the summer before my senior year of college. Instead, I need to pursue some internships at large newspapers or magazines and invest in my future."

 

Eh, you might have had just enough of a better career to prevent you from getting out.

Plus, you probably blew up a ton of shit that summer, which can be a lot of fun.

 

I would have bloody asked out the cheerleader in 10th grade who wanted to jump my bones.

 

The three that come to mind immediately:

1) Go back and spend even more time with my dad when he was dying, especially the night before he died.

2) My last two years of college focused more on my studies and less on working at the newspaper that just hired me. (Would have had less money but a higher GPA)

3) Handled a couple of situations differently with two women from my past. I'm 99% sure that changing these would still have put me on the same life trajectory (still meeting my wife, etc.) but might have impacted my character/personality going forward.

 

Saturday night before the start of my senior year in high school. My folks went out of town and left me to babysit the younger sibs. I called my best friend and told him I'm home sitting so why don't you come over and we'll hang out. He told half the town what was up and before I knew it I had one of those parties going on at my house. Complete fiasco that ended with the cops making an appearance. Of course, my folks found out and I was grounded the next weekend, which was Labor Day weekend. Best friend went out with guy from his neighborhood to the next town chasing girls and on the way back he was killed in a car crash. I have beaten myself up over it ever since, and it's been more than 40 years. I'd like to think that we'd have done something else, or I would been able to warn him that he was about to pull out in front of an oncoming car. Something, anything, that wouldn't have ended up with him dead.

 

Probably would go back and get a degree in business instead of journalism. Put me behind my peers for a few years. Forced me to jump jobs a lot.

 

Shit, a business degree is as useless as a journalism degree, in most cases.

 

I go mostly with the folks who say everything you've done has led to where you are, and if you're happy there (which I am), there's no need for regret.

The girl story, for me, was a high school sophomore when I was a junior. Her best friend was the younger sister of my best friend, so we had spent plenty of time together, but I couldn't pull the trigger. By the time I decided to do it, I turned the corner to her hall at school, and there she was walking with a senior. Game over. (Of course, a year later another guy takes her to prom, and they had a big argument and break-up over the fact that she was saving herself for marriage. So I guess I didn't lose all that much.)

As for real life, I would redo the honors statistics class I was taking as a college sophomore. I was doing fine -- and based on test scores and aptitude "should" have followed a math-based career path -- but then the homework started to require some time and effort and I made the conscious decision that I wasn't ever going to need it so I blew off the rest of the class. Had I just continued with a bit of math, maybe to the point of getting a minor, the world would have opened for me inside and outside of journalism.