Crossroads: How often do you wonder about things that never were?

[BlueIris]

Things as in potential futures that didn't come to pass. And I mean wonder, not fixate.

There are two great crossroads I think about sometimes, one political and one personal. The year 2000 was a great crossroads for our nation. I think it's clear that some of us (ahem, neoconservatives) took the wrong path. From time to time, I think about the terrific future that could have been ours collectively through the presidency of Al Gore--it's a painful imagining, but I do it anyway. The other "crossing" is more personal: my 24th year. I was in a serious car accident, and then...well, let's just say that if I hadn't started cleaning up my life, I don't think I would have had one that much longer.

Curiously, I was playing around with my pendulum the other night, and asked it when my last big crossroads was. I expected it to land on 2003, the year of the accident. Instead, it landed on 2008. I find this odd, as I didn't really consider that a year of big, decisive choices--for me, anyway. I feel as if I am generally where I am supposed to be right now, but I can't help but wonder (a little)--what great (or terrible) future might have passed me by in '08? What did I miss out on, or manage to avoid?

Feel free to share you own stories, of course.

[Fire Walk With Me]

1. I had become utterly overwhelmed by my late 20s due to dual-diagnosis

and severe empathic ability...I -had- good intuition and a clear path to what is right, but ended up overwhelmed by fear/anxiety and let pass many positive opportunities, and just barely managed to create a (then) good business path (which has also failed due to the above). God/the guides slowed me down to complete defeat, as the process goes, and I would have ended up created vast trouble had I not been caused to CEASE. I am now on about four good hours of energy per day, and spend the rest laying down and praying (can't even concentrate enough to read, which is a favorite past-time).

In other words, the incarnational life lesson of change forced itself through all of my good and bad decisions and caused me to get back to what really mattered in this- positive growth and attention to the spiritual. Otherwise, I'm a destructive, self-obsessed piece of shit. Ahem, attempting recovery :)

Some crossroads are forced upon us for our greater good, as you appear to have concluded regarding your own life.. :) Good luck on your path...

[Celebration]

2. it's the "what ifs"

Alternate realities and dimensions aside, when we DO create our lives we do make real choices. When we do, another opportunity is closed. So, yes, I do wonder about choices I have made. But I actually think everyone is where he/she needs to be.

I remember this acutely from age 25-35............

If that helps.

Oh, if you ask the pendulum to narrow down the months, circumstances, you might be able to pin it down. (friends, family, job?, month?, location? generic? specific?, etc., etc.) Set your intention and good luck. It could provide insight for the future, or not. :)

[RagAss]

3. I never do. Not since I learned that there is no doership.

Everything this body has experienced was determined prior to its coming into being. Prior to the universe itself. "Me" is a misconception called ego.

[Sanity Claws]

4. How real are those forks? Really?

I look back at some crossroads in my life, such as career choice and relationships. A few years ago, I thought if I had taken the other fork in the road, things would have been so different. However, over a couple of decades, I think I would have ended up in the same place regardless of which fork in the road I took.
The same for the country as a whole.

For example, what if Gore had taken his rightful place as President? 2000-04 would have been different but the Republican philosophy that spawned Bush and his ilk would still have credibility and the shit would have just come later. In fact, if, as many of us suspect, 9/11 was an inside job, 9/11 may still have happened through the Bush manipulation of the CIA, etc. The Republicans would have come to power in 2004 with a mandate and we would have ended up in both wars.

I think in the long run, the forks lead to the same end.

[MorningGlow]

11. Probability

I think if we have predetermined (before we are incarnated) that we will definitely experience specific events/be with certain people, and we don't actively change that determination (choose to alter the mission) while incarnated, our paths will lead us to those (of high probability) despite detours. Other, more minor experiences (lower probability) can be chosen or not, and it won't make that big of a difference in our primary life path/mission.

[Fire Walk With Me]

16. I was taught that there are two types of general incarnational blueprints.

Change, and Validation. Change is the most common, in which we come in to shift specific issues/characteristics; Validation is where we come in like a lion to validate what we have learned, perhaps overall. Those who truly excel, who make it look so easy that everyone else in comparison appear to be stumbling about like drunken infants, are likely those in a Validation incarnation.

In terms of overall blueprints, we are definitely going to encounter that which we have signed up to work upon, over and over if necessary in order for it to be in our faces until we work through it; it can be and likely is nearly always several issues with one or two major items such as changing selfishness to sharing (through parenthood, etc.) or more major ones such as addiction...

There is free will involved, but we -will- encounter that which we need to work upon, until we do so. That's what I was taught and to me it still rings true.

[Delphinus]

18. Appointment in Samarra, perhaps?

Great story, as it does seem that, as you say, the forks lead to the same end.

[Kind of Blue]

5. Not anymore.

I read or heard last week a phrase that's stuck with me, that the worst state of being is imagining a future/or alternative that will never be. And I think that's true after living most of my 30's in what if's and regrets. Now that I like where and who I am, it's make crazy to indulge in it.

I remember reading in Seth that different aspects of one soul (not the soul group) can incarnate at the same time to add experience and growth to the whole. He said just ask to see who this person is, of course I did. So I think that all the alternatives, all the what ifs are being played out and this is my role at this time and I'm going to make the best of it.

Hmm, I wonder if the alternate us(es?) wonder about us :rofl: This is getting too heady. Now I'm see all the me's getting together to talk about the different paths of zillions of choices. See what I mean, it makes me crazy thinking about it :rofl:

[SheilaT]

6. Personally, I do think about

that kind of thing a lot. Sometimes I spend a fair amount of time figuring out how my life might have been different had I made different choices in the past.

I also read a lot of science fiction and I'm especially attracted to alternate history stories, but that's just me.

I felt the election of 1988 was a crossroads, and it felt to me back then as if people from the future had come back and somehow meddled with things to change the outcome. But then, I do read a LOT of science fiction.

[get the red out]

7. I identify with Blue Iris and FWWM

I was, to say the least, suicidal by age 28 and really on my way toward death. I was fortunate to have chosen to participate in life-saving change. I was just cursing myself for the million-th time this morning for not taking better advantage of my youthful "rebirth" at that point and moved from Kentucky to some sane state. But then I don't know but what I took the path I was supposed to take and had the experiences I was supposed to have. I have been through all kinds of thinking changes in the past 17 years that have brought me to where I am now, and at this point I am adamantly certain of the things I believe to be important, basically that treating our fellow living beings with decency (including the Earth herself) trumps all other contrived ideas, and that is important to me. I had to slog through every process I have slogged through to get here, from meeting my husband when I was a default Democrat (with no clear idea why I was a liberal), getting into listening to his hateful conservative radio shows with him and even wondering if I had been wrong in my beliefs and the "strong" conservatives were correct, to having an awakening and realizing that I absolutely could not go along with that anymore because it was against every small bit of ethical reasoning that I had ever managed to obtain, to now dealing with the opposite in me which is too strong of a focus and obsession on the neo-con evils.

I am convinced that the Universe doesn't give a care about how much money I make or what kind of house I live in, I believe it does care about whether I view the world more selfishly or less selfishly and whether I develop the capacity to care about others. So maybe there is more than one path to better thinking that each of us can get on, and if we miss one higher thinking bus, we might have to walk through pouring rain to get to the next bus stop, but we can catch the next bus to our destination.

I used to view myself as a piece of crap, because I felt that someone that had had problems such as mine was supposed to think that in order to be perceived as "good", but I realized that thinking that was just an extension of a character flaw long learned as a child that needed to be worked on and removed. Oh, I have read and heard from many sources that we pick our parents for educational purposes - so I guess my Mom can give me some kind of Ph.D. in the spirit realm, LOL! Bless her soul, I see now the terribly frightened person she has always been, trying desperately to stay in denial about her serious mental illness to the point of projecting mental illness onto others, including her children. What a horrible mental world to be stuck in, bless her soul, I wish I could make it better and I can't. Reaching a point of seeing her painful world, and not just it's consequences on my sister and I, has been a journey in itself. Seeing her as a sick person rather than my enemy was a huge turning point for me because I came to see that she saved my life when I was 28 by telling me she wanted me to die. My desire to defy her over-rode my slide toward the grave and I became determined to do whatever it took to live, just to piss her off.

[BanzaiBonnie]

9. You go GTRO!

I think many of us have a rough ride until we figure some things out. I'm glad you defied your mother's call for wanting you to die. It was a horrible thing to say, but look what it did for you.

I'm sad that anyone ever said that to you. It was ugly and horrible, but as you said, growing into an understanding that your mother is a very sick person helps you to know that "it's not you".

As my teacher says "It's all good, but it's not all GOOOOOOOD."


I suspect that we all get to experience all the emotions there are.


Blessings to you Dear One,
Bonnie

[get the red out]

15. Thanks but we all have our deal

I haven't met many people with that many get out of jail free cards on this Earth path. It took me a while to realize that mentally ill people can't be completely blamed for the things they say. And how would I know that keeping me from dying in that way wasn't one of her assignments? Oh it tangles up when I think too hard. I am so much more fortunate than many people, I count my blessings frequently (though I bitch and complain my share).

Blessings to you too Bonnie!

[Fire Walk With Me]

24. "...she saved my life when I was 28 by telling me she wanted me to die."

(slaps forehead)

I am so sorry. I have learned the hard way that we must take care in our relations to others as everything we say has weight and heft, and effects those around us and the Universe in general. Thankfully you took to defiance and got solid in the process. Anger can indeed be a constructive tool if used as you have.

Growth....MEH. :rofl::hi::hug:

[MorningGlow]

8. Funny you should ask--I was just thinking about this yesterday

The most notable event I remember was from my early 20s. (I think I might have mentioned this before here in ASAH, but I'll relate it again in case I didn't.) I was going out with a guy I thought was THE ONE. He moved to a big city; I followed and went to grad school there. I was happy with him, but at the same time I had a certainty at the back of my mind. It was that I was going to die before I was 35. I wasn't being morbid; I just KNEW that was going to happen and took it as a matter of course. I didn't like the idea, mind. But there was nothing I could do about it, so I tried not to think about it. Every once in a while I'd get all freaked out, but then I'd just push the thought away and go about my daily life.

I went out with this guy for about two years; then, as so often happens in my life, a cosmic switch flipped, and the universe started screaming at me to break up with him. I had NO choice--my feelings changed for him practically overnight. So even though I would be totally on my own for the rest of my time in grad school, in a big city where I knew practically no one besides friends through him, I broke up with him.

It was quite a while later that I realized that my certainty that I was going to die before I was 35 was gone, and it had disappeared right after I broke up with my boyfriend.

Eventually I realized that if I had stayed with him and lived life according to what he wanted, something would have happened to me (an accident? an illness? I don't know) that meant I would really have died early in my life. So I feel the universe was not only setting me on the correct path by urging me to break up with him, but also ensuring I avoided that dead-end path (literally).

Overall, I try very hard to follow my instincts when it comes to choosing my life path--I try to listen to the messages and be aware of which way the universe is shoving me. (Sometimes it's subtle, sometimes it's downright blatant, depending on how thick I'm being at the time! :D )

But regrets? Never regrets. Because I do find I'm always where I need to be, so no experience is ever wasted. And if I think I "missed out" by choosing not to do something, I often find out later that it wasn't worth doing, and I didn't miss anything after all.

[teenagebambam]

10. I'm with you, Sheila

I'm a die hard sci-fi nerd, I imagine that all those alternate scenarios are playing out SOMEWHERE, (alternate universes perhaps?) and sometimes, I think I even get a glimpse of one or more of them. BUt as for THIS universe, I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on past choices, I think it's much more empowering to really embrace the choices you've made and their consequences - after all, none of us really makes a BAD choice on purpose, right? We make the best decision we cam based on the information we have at the moment!

[SheilaT]

12. I also want to add a few other thoughts here.

While I absolutely agree that it's a waste to spend a lot of energy and time beating ourselves up over "what if" scenarios, they can serve a useful purpose. They can sometimes help us keep our current situation in perspective.

I also believe that we came here with a specific purpose in mind, and we chose our particular life circumstances so we could learn certain lessons. But that doesn't mean we just passively accept whatever happens to us. Maybe the struggle in a difficult life is precisely the lesson we're here to learn. We do have free will, and we can change and make changes for the better.

[LWolf]

13. All the time.

Political crossroads? Aside from the Big 3 assassinations, I often wonder what direction the nation would have traveled if Ronald Reagan had never been president.

Personal? The people I chose to marry, the age at which I chose to become a parent.

[Fire Walk With Me]

17. That is one of the most wonderful things I have ever seen anywhere.

"I often wonder what direction the nation would have traveled if Ronald Reagan had never been president."

Ronald Reagan, never having been President. May I bask in this for eons upon eons? AHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh....doing the backstroke in such loveliness :)

[get the red out]

22. Ronald Reagan NOT President, that's huge

We would be living in a whole different world.

[BlueIris]

26. Yep.

Although I still think the absence of a Johnson presidency would have made the biggest difference. No Vietnam, maybe no Nixon.

[get the red out]

27. JFK - his death

Makes me wonder about the true, far-reaching significance of JFK's assassination. Almost like someone looked into the future and choose the one act that could come the closest to completely destroying this democracy. Just the shattering of hope that it caused in young people of that time. My parents were in their late 20s at that time and it rocked their world.

[WhiteTara]

14. to this day, I wish I had followed my

instinct to go to Miami and fight for our democracy. I long for our real president to have led us to a new future and I have been on anti depressants since then. But this year I am planting a garden, I hope Mother will heal me with her goodness.

[Delphinus]

19. Oh, Tara,

I *know* Mother's goodness will help you heal. :hug:

[conscious evolution]

20. She will

She always does.
Its her job.

[2Design]

21. Funny I was thiinking of Gore and Kerry today and their VP picks who

both wound up being very flawed and thought perhaps that is why it did not come to be.

[Cleita]

23. Not to mention on the Republicans side Bush's and McCain's very

flawed picks of Cheney and Palin.

[BlueIris]

25. Election fraud (and public denial of the fraud) is why Gore and Kerry were denied the presidency.

Nothing metaphysical about that, if you ask me.

[rosesaylavee]

28. Ah, there be dragons for sure...

I can't think about the 'what coulda beens'... I get wrapped into pretzels just trying to determine what the hell was 'that' scenarios from what I actually chose to do! :)

I have had turning points where I realized important things about being me. At 25 I realized that it was very unlikely that I would be a famous actress and/or director. It wasn't going to happen and figuring out what I was to do next was problematic as I had fixed on that dream so thoroughly it was hard to imagine another. In looking at it now, a (eh hem) few decades later, I think I was ill suited emotionally to have led that life. I had the talent but not the malebility to do whatever it took to get there and my skin was far too thin to have survived that dream as a happy person.

I wish I had looked into a few other choices along the way but I have learned that one of the things I need to do is be kind to myself for choices made. I do think I will get to play out other scenarios in other lives so trying to get this one right, to listen to my inner self when I can get quiet enough to do it, is all that I really expect of me this time thru.

Be well my friend and be kind to yourself!

[MorningGlow]

29. Same here

I minored in theater in college and dreamed of being an actress or a singer. But deep down I knew I didn't have that "certain extra something" that would generate a good Q score. ;) Plus I was very naive and extremely sensitive back then--I never would have made it in the entertainment field.

So on the eve of graduation, when two of my friends who were going to be headed to New York City immediately after we got our sheepskins encouraged me to come with them (and our theater professor, who was talking with us, said I could make it), I turned them down flat. I knew what I was going home to--back to my bedroom in my parents' house and a variety of shit jobs in retail and factories--and that's exactly what happened till I escaped to grad school.

However, never once did I wish I had taken off for NYC the day after graduation. I just knew that wasn't my path. I do miss acting and singing very much, though.

[rosesaylavee]

30. Yeah, that sounds like my career path too

except without the Masters... but did ok as some have figured out that I can herd cats fairly well.

[MorningGlow]

31. FYI the master's went nowhere

I got a degree in teaching high school English, taught for one year, hated it, and left the profession. My family still laments the "waste" of two years and many $$ on a degree for what they see as one of a handful of noble professions (along with doctors and lawyers), but I know it was necessary to take a path that turned out to be a detour in my life.

I learned to be independent and survive alone in a big city, including breaking up with a BF instead of clinging to him "just because", and I also found out that teaching was not my path either. But in the meantime I learned a lot (while teaching) and, I hope, touched a couple of teen lives during my stint in the classroom. I also learned not to romanticize small-town life--the school I taught at was pretty backwoods, and lemme tell ya, it ain't all Northern Exposure! NUH-UH!
:rofl:

[rosesaylavee]

32. oh, having lived in a small town

that was not really receptive to any newcomers (aka anyone that moved into town after 1950) I understand. Beautiful settings they are, picturesque, but found I don't have the patience to wait a few decades to be trusted member of the society. Or that was my experience.

[MorningGlow]

33. I'm in that situation now

When I was teaching, it was sort of difficult to break into the small-town society, but I had a "pass" because I was a new teacher that the school needed. Now, however, we live in a small town where generations are born, grow up, and STAY for decades. We, on the other hand, turned up out of nowhere and have been here only four years. Plus neither Mr. MG nor I work in the town, so we don't have a lot of direct contact with the old timers besides our immediate neighbors (who still haven't invited us to set foot in their homes--we just chat outside). One of the guys who worked on our house renovation over the summer said you're not considered a "native" of this town (nor, it's implied, are you accepted and trusted) till you've been here at least 25 years. We're nowhere near that milestone. Not sure we're going to make it, to be honest, but I want to be here till Jr. finishes elementary school at least, because I like the small-town level of attention he gets in the classroom. After that...we'll see.

[rosesaylavee]

34. Well, whatever you do, don't mention any kind of support for

PeeWee Herman. That's a deal breaker as I found out.

[japple]

37. I have to bite my tongue on a daily basis where I live, and my

mother's family goes back to the original settlers in this area. I didn't move here until 5 years ago, however, and am still suspect. When I tell my co-workers that I'm a bleeding heart liberal left over from the 60s, that I support President Obama, and that I respect a woman's right to make her own choices, everything gets really quiet. But I have made small in-roads, and I get along well with everyone at work. They probably think of me as their token liberal friend!

[Oak2004]

35. I am grateful on a daily basis I never went down the (short and ugly) path that I was plotting out

in my early teens (circa early 1973).

My childhood sucked. My family (largely my father) was abusive and I was bullied at school. I had been ratcheting up my retaliatory violence, and my abusers were escalating in response. Eventually, I lost all hope. I planned my final act of retaliation: I was going to smuggle a shotgun into my high school, wrapped in rolled-up posterboard so that it appeared to be a school project. Then I was going to kill as many as I could before I killed myself or was gunned down, whichever came first.

I would have "pioneered" that sort of school shooting, had I followed through on my plan. And I was very close to executing my plan, so close that every time one of these tragedies occurs I can almost taste what it was like for the perpetrators: the fear and the high of the adrenaline; human feelings neatly dissociated from the execution of The Plan, a necessary discipline in order to bring matters to their intended end; a perverse aliveness at the moment of so much death; all cocooned in a hopelessness so thick its like wading through a swimming pool filled with perfect blackness, because people with the slightest spark of hope left in them don't do these things. That's what it would have been like. That's what it is like.

What happened instead was the single most defining moment of my life. I was standing at my bedroom window, looking up at the stars and thinking through my plans. Suddenly, in an instant, the darkness split and in an instant a tremendous amount of information, a very different kind of plan, flowed into my mind. It was voluminous and detailed information that covered everything from the mundane (for example, how to dress) to matters as weighty as how to think. Don't ask me who or what provided the information: I don't know, and I don't think it matters (if it did matter, the source would have identified itself). And don't ask me why it happened: I don't know, and I can't think of much at that point in my life that would have distinguished me from, say, Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold.

I did not embrace the new plan with enthusiasm. I was at the time a militant atheist with a love of the hard sciences, and I was attracted to the "old left. My initial reaction was to try to convince myself it did not happen. But I played with the new tools in my toolbox, and toyed with the new plan, even as I doubted it, because the new plan was the only plan that was left. That instant reignited a small spark of hope, and the old plan was only an option for the hopeless. Plus, the new plan that couldn't possibly be real, as any atheist could tell you ;) , had immediate and obvious real results. At the time I had been standing at the window, contemplating killing and dying, I was on one of my frequent suspensions from school (that's why I was still planning, and not yet executing). Within a few weeks of returning from that suspension, I improbably went from school pariah to being befriended by some of the most popular kids in school. In fact I became outrageously successful at almost anything I touched for the next two years at high school (including getting out of that four year high school, and away from my family, in only two more years). Heh heh... buttering me up for the hard stuff to come, were you, cosmos? ;)

Any regrets about the fork in the road I was nudged onto? Of course not!

[Kind of Blue]

36. Good God, this is possibly the most astounding

transformation I've ever heard. Thank you for posting. Goodness, I wish I could pick your brain for more details though I know exactly what you mean - it's indeed a New Plan and the exterior results are immediate just by switching how one thinks and feels.

Please provide more, if you're ever inclined to. Your story is a jolt to the system in a very good way :yourock: O8)

[Oak2004]

39. Some of the results were immediate, but not necessarily much of the attitude change

For example, when I was readmitted to school, though I did nothing as horrific as what I was planning, within a week or two I ended up in yet another (low-level) violent conflict with a teacher. I was still very much of the mindset that everyone was out to get me, and when I misinterpreted a comment by a teacher as an insult, I threw a trash can at the teacher. Then I ran off to an empty classroom and barricaded myself in by pushing the desks against the door, and waited, armed with a pile of dictionaries to fling, for security to come and throw me out, yet again.

I did get the suspension I expected, but not before I was disarmed by my soon-to-be best friend. She was in my (latest) math class (for some reason after the really long suspensions I was given a new schedule when I was readmitted). She followed me in, pushed the desks out of the way, and said something on the order of "You seem upset. Is there anything I can do to help?" She was completely innocent, absolutely sincere, and without fear. What could I do at that point but put the dictionaries away and, eventually, peaceably leave the classroom with her (and turn myself in)? I've asked her many times over the years why she did that. Her answer is always something to the effect of "You seemed like an interesting person, and I knew you wouldn't hurt me".

So it was less that I was an entirely changed person than that I was a miserable person with a crappy view of the world who had just been handed a bunch of implausible opportunities. Early on I tried to piss all over the opportunities, but they were piss-proof. What's a malcontent to do under those circumstances but give up? :)

[Kind of Blue]

40. Just delightful to read, Oak2004.

"Disarmed" by a new friend with just kind words and still friends after all these years.
Surrender can be really liberating but I'd much rather fall into as you did, with piss-proof opportunities than failed ones, like mine. Either way, I guess we're just hard headed :)
Thanks so much for giving more details. Peoples' journeys on the road of peace of mind is fascinating to me. I read once that every single thing we do, all of our individual actions are about achieving that state of being :hug:

[Oak2004]

42. There were plenty of "failures" to come. Just not in high school.

A twenty four year old who flunked out of college after graduating high school at 16, who then apparently screwed up whatever potential there was at a political career and a music career, and who was in such a mad rush to run away from themselves that they ran themselves into homelessness would in all likelihood be described as a "failure".

Except that such a description would be profoundly wrong. Those were hard times, but they were also perfect times -- times too exactly right to be the product of "failure". Sometimes the only way forward is through creative destruction, and sometimes creative destruction, when right in the middle of it, looks like failure, but it is not.

[OneGrassRoot]

38. Wow x 1000!

I'm with Kind of Blue. If you are led to share more, I'm all ears, eyes....

How fascinating. You could probably instill the possibility in others to (allow) a similar internal shift and have that spark of hope. I know you weren't asking for it, that it just came to you, but still...your story is really inspiring.

You describe hopelessness so perfectly.

Thanks for being here. :)

:hug:

[BlueIris]

41. Wow. Great story.

Glad you were steered away from the old plan.