I am a big fan of Stephen King.
I have read the entire Dark Tower series, It, The Shining, Doctor Sleep, and my favorite movie is still based on his novella, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.
So, at the behest of several friends who told me it’s their favorite book, I finally got it .started reading 22/11/63..
Here’s the mind-blowing premise:
On November 22, 1963, three shots hit Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed.
What if you can change it again?
Stephen King’s new dramatic novel is about a man who travels through time to prevent the assassination of JFK – a thousand-page tour de force.
Like any good nerd, I devoted too much brainpower to hypothetical time travel, the butterfly effect, and changing the past. I hope you have too.
Time travel is such a fascinating idea, because our brains can’t stop thinking about “the road less traveled” and “what if I did X instead of Y?”
Which brings me to the topic of today’s newsletter.
Accepting that some paths are closed is incredibly liberating.
Some trails are closed
My friend Tim Urban above .WaitButWhy.com. put this chart on the life choices we have made so far, and the branching paths open to us tomorrow:
It’s really easy for our brains to hyperfocus on all the black lines in our past: the paths closed to us, the decisions we didn’t make, the decisions we did make and how our lives often feel “determined” now.
“Because of how I’ve done this in the past, that’s just the way things are.”
“It’s a shame I never did XYZ, now it’s too late. I’m so sorry!”…
“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 life backwards, in which we made every decision with the best information we had at the time.
(If you’re looking for a solid read, Matt Haig’s .The midnight library. is a fictional story that provokes reflections on alternative life paths and acceptance. Haig draws from a past .decision to almost take his life..)
So let’s talk a little bit about those black and possible green lines.
Maybe some paths are closed!
I brought all these things up 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 about .celebrate behind closed doors..
We’ve all heard the stories about people starting certain careers later in life.
An example would be, “It’s never too late! Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his breakthrough role in “Pulp Fiction” until he was 46 years old.
And Chris points out that sometimes… it’s too late:
While these stories are inspiring, the lesson “it’s not too late” is not universal. Sometimes it’s too late! To believe otherwise is to believe in a fantasy.
Some things in life have real terms, not all, but some.
In other words, sometimes we often hold on to something that we know we will eventually do “someday”, and maybe we refuse to accept the reality that… yes, it’s too late.
Maybe we hold on to hope that we will eventually run a marathon… even if we hate running.
Maybe we’ll keep hoping we’ll write that cookbook…even if we don’t like cooking anymore.
Maybe we can decide that a few paths are closed to us. We can accept this.
The Future is not yet in Petra
A few weeks ago, I wrote about how .The past is not set in stone.because our perception of history changes.
It’s okay to accept that maybe a dream we had when we were in our 20s is okay to die.
However, it is equally tragic to assume that “it is too late” to make any changes in our future, and that it is already determined.
Betrand Russel once said “You don’t have 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 it might be too late for specific paths, and that’s perfectly fine.
In fact, it’s worth celebrating.
Letting go of some paths, or accepting that some paths may be closed to us can clear the space to make a different decision for life ahead.
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 .weight loss aid..
We can’t travel back in time to stop the Kennedy assassination.
Some of the paths of life are now closed to us.
That could be good!
Instead of spending more intellectual capacity regretting our closed black paths, we can work to decide which green path we are going to take next.
– Steve
PS: Need guidance and accountability to reach your fitness goals? Nerd Fitness has helped over 10,000 humans over the past 8 years with 1-on-1 online fitness coaching. .Click here for more details..
