There Is No Such Thing as "What Might Have Been"

For good or ill, most people have wondered at times what might have been. 

One night while out with friends in Santa Monica, I found an iPhone lying in the street. I picked it up but couldn’t contact its owner because it was password protected. After dinner and drinks with friends, I started to drive home. The phone buzzed. I answered it and the grateful owner told me she’d been frantically searching for it all night. She was a few blocks away. 

I turned my car around and drove to a bustling street corner where she was anxiously waiting. She was blonde and pretty and thanked me profusely for returning her phone. 

We locked eyes for a brief moment. “Can I hug you?” she asked. We smiled and hugged, then went our separate ways. 

Driving home, I wondered if I should have been bold and asked to exchange numbers. Was the lost iPhone a sign from God? An invitation to an alternate reality in which she and I fell in love? I used to wonder. But not anymore.

If I had gotten her number, I may never have ended up meeting my current wife. 

And I wouldn’t trade our marriage for anything. Especially for an alternate reality that only exists in some imaginary realm.

Quantum physicists have speculated about the possibility of parallel realities. Movies like Back to the Future and The Terminator consider how life may have turned out differently if we could alter space and time. In the classic movie It’s A Wonderful Life, George Bailey observes an alternate reality that might occur if he decides to commit suicide. He chooses not to jump off a bridge, but to keep living. 

He realizes that, even with all its troubles and sorrows, this life is indeed wonderful. And it’s the only one we have.

We will all make mistakes. God forgives our sins and redeems our failures. And He allows us the opportunity to make good, hopeful, wise decisions each moment of each day. As George Eliot wrote: “It is never too late to be who you were meant to be.” 

Whatever you did in the past is done. What happens in the future you can’t yet know. All you have is now. And through it all, God is there. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

Looking back is natural sometimes, but it can also be dangerous. 

We must be careful to avoid discontent and ingratitude for the unique life God has given us now. If we are unhappy, we can make appropriate changes. But we should be good and grateful stewards of the life we do have.

As Saint Paul said: “forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:13-14). Forgetting what lies behind. Straining forward to what lies ahead.

It’s normal sometimes to wonder what might have been.

But we cannot live in that alternate reality because it does not exist. 

What's more, that alternate reality may have been a disaster. God protects us from going down wrong roads.

So, take the dream job if you can get it. Risk asking that person on a date. But also live in the blessing of now.

In other words: Make the choices that leave you with no regrets, and trust God to take care of you.