There have been several movies where some mysterious stranger appears and gives the main character a chance to change a singular moment in their life. Then they get to see how different things would have been if they had gone left instead of right. What would life be like if they had married that girl they loved in college? How would it be if they had not chosen money over family? Usually in the movie it's done to help show the main character the importance of what's missing in their life or what they only think is missing. Each of us has those moments where it's very obvious that a choice was made and our life went down one path rather than another. Life is made up of nearly endless choices and it's hard to know how the seemingly little choices could have a big effect on our lives. Still there are those big choices that would have lead us to drastically different places, if only we had decided to choose something else. The thing is that those changes in what we choose could have erased the life we knew. Which also means that there are an almost unlimited number of lives out there that we never lived.
Now I suppose it's a moot point to even think about because none of us can ever really go back and take a different route. Even if we're given a chance to retry something it's already tainted by our knowledge of at least one potential outcome. In that regard we only ever get a chance to make a choice once. Anything after that is a different choice because not only is the situation technically different, so are we by that point. There are those that say knowing what they know now, they'd still do it the same way, but again that's only because we know that even when times are difficult that things will eventually work themselves out. Every one of our decisions and experiences create the person that we are at this precise moment. Changing even one of those is essentially changing us in some way.
At least for me I start slowly working my way backwards as I examine the various divergence points in my life. What if I hadn't taken that phone call a few months ago? I wouldn't be where I am now. What if I had never quit my job to move to the desert for school? I could be somewhere wondering what my life would have been like if I had taken a chance and ditching the known for the unknown. What if I had picked love instead of the practical? My life would be a million miles away from where it is at this moment. The questions can go on forever because there will always be those points where we're aware of the choice we could have made. Or no matter those choices I could have ended up where I am now. Granted I wouldn't be the same person I am now, but maybe we are where we're supposed to be and no matter our choices we end up in the same spot eventually, only the journey to that point is different.
If there are an infinite number of possibilities all existing at the same time, then it's possible that somewhere out there a version of yourself is wondering what life would be like if they had picked the choices you went with. That would mean you're living the life someone wishes they had but can never have.
