What If?

I think the one thing that’s hard about writing this blog is that I always have ideas floating around in my head, I always listen to conversations I have and overanalyze situations I am in trying to find some lesson I could write about from it. I don’t hate it though, I think it helps me learn more about myself and become more aware of the world around me.  Sometimes I have to search for ideas and inspiration for weeks before I can find something to write about.  Sometimes it just comes to me as easy as sleep.  Literally.   When I can’t sleep I let my mind wander, usually I think of mindless things, things about the day, and past things that I have done.  The other night as I fought sleep with mindless thoughts I was plagued with the thought that haunts everyone.  Those two innocent words that when they are put next to each other they cause people to obsess and can haunt some for over the course of their whole lives. 

“What If….”

What if?  What if I hadn’t said what I had said?  What if I hadn’t done what I did?  Or did what I wanted to but was too scared to do?  What if I had stood up to the people?  Talked more?  Kept my mouth shut?   What if  I did what everyone wanted me to do? Or did what no one expected?  What if I didn’t follow my heart?  What if I did?

Those two words can make a person go crazy and make you wake up at midnight with a headache and the need to blog…believe me I know.   The thing about what if is that there will always be a question mark no matter what you do.  We learned in Economics my senior year about opportunity cost.  Which is the alternative to your first choice.  You’ll always have an opportunity cost, something you could have done but decided against it for some reason.  But no matter what you choose your alternative opportunity cost will always be there.

So I guess I could spout off some cliché that makes me cringe about living with no regrets.  But haven’t we all heard that and read it in quote pages on tumblr, pinterist, stumbleupon, and every other time wasting web page?  Haven’t we all heard it but found it quite hard to truly live by as we live in a world of what ifs.   People say that if you follow your heart you’ll never ask what if because you’ll always have what your heart desires.  I don’t know if I believe that, you always follow your head you usually get a sensible answer.  But then again what if? 

Hehehe I guess I have sort have established that this question pretty much doesn’t have an answer.  That we really shouldn’t worry about the what if because guess what?  We really wont ever know until some genius makes a time machine.  We are never going to be able to go back into the past and figure out what could have been.  So why should we worry about it?  Why bother?  Because if we sit here at two in the morning pondering the what ifs…well we are just wasting time we could pondering the important decisions we need to make in the future.  I’m not going to say live with no regrets although I do agree with it, I just don’t agree with clichés.  But don’t let the what ifs wake you up in the middle of the night.  They will always be there.  And even though I still have many what ifs I guess I’m saying to not worry and regret over things we really can’t change…and put that energy into the future.  For we can’t change the past and our mistakes, but we can have them help to change our future.  And you know what, Life goes on whether you want it to or not.  The sun rises and sets everyday, you can either spend it thinking what if or go live your life.

 Have a lovely what if free day :) 
Sydney :)