No one can change my life, Only I can do that.
Carol Burnett
I’ve had some difficulty writing on this topic. At first, I chose a type of media, an anime I watch online to use as an example of the title but while analyzing the story realized they didn’t match. I was then at a loss as to how to write this. The easy answer is to come up with another example and that was difficult because nothing really interests me at all. All of these shows have something in common besides my passing interests – Primeval [2007-2011]; Timeless [2016-]; Quantum Leap [1989-1993]; 12 Monkeys [2015-2018]; Continuum [2012-2015]; Tru Calling [2003-2005]; all these titles have some kind of time travel involved in their shows. Every fall TV season, networks produce a new show or several shows with the concept of time travel in them. There are formulas and statistics that go with their decisions, but I don’t have any interest in that at all. Time Travel- the idea that seems great, but actually isn’t.
I sometimes wonder what would happen if I was able to time travel ten or fifteen years back in time with the knowledge I have of the present. Because I have a kid, I never wonder her out of existence, so my high school years are always out of bounds. There are few things about my family I would attempt to improve or change outright. But for this short essay, those thought processes will be avoided because of murky tangents.
Fifteen years ago, would place this writer in her late twenties, this time in the past, I would definitely set up my website and blog accounts effectively. Set up a writing schedule and stick to it with the idea that I have prepared a better platform for creating content, writing and the writing business. I would have a degree in Anthropology and established a writing career that utilized it. There will also be minor adjustments to the personal life, again remember to avoid the murky tangents.
Of course, once I changed my past, my future becomes something completely different. I couldn’t be the writer of this post. I would be writing another kind of post. I have several stories under construction that wouldn’t be the stories they are now and the very new ones in development would never be. With a changed past, the new person would have missed the failures and the surprising successes of my present. Inspiration has come to me more easily than it has in the past, once I realized to ignore it all together and write anyway. It was something I didn’t get until my mid 30’s. The question is, if you know which future to improve, what would be the problem. The biggest problem would be the same issue I’m dealing with in the present. Procrastination. It was my enemy in the past; it is my enemy now. At one point this post was a victim of procrastination. It was left for dead.
What saved it was the desire to write and post the results, to maintain the recent blog JC Henry Universe.
The conclusion I have come up with is that I would be a writer either way. I am learning to gauge success in a different manner. This idea of success will be explored in another essay. Until then consider, what you would do if you could time-travel to your past? Would you rather return to the life you have now or completely different life? What would you need to be content? Many time travel episodes express that what is most desired doesn’t always make us happy or content.
JC Henry Universe 