The Lives That We’ll Never Live
Musings on lives that were never meant to be for us.
For me, winters are a time for reflection, more so than the usual. The long winter nights, lying in bed in a warm cocoon, sitting by the fireplace, sipping hot chocolate. With snow outside. It just makes you think and wonder about life.
Well, none of it actually happens where I live, but it’s how I picture winters. Maybe it’s because of all the books I’ve read from English authors, describing those cold winter nights in the English countryside. 🙂
Anyway, to get to the point: So, yesterday, I had a thought: What would it have been like to live the different lives that I never got a chance to live? What all lives have I missed out on? And it’s not the first time that I’ve had this thought.
Let me explain what I mean by it.
I believe that fate or chance plays a big role in our lives. Where we are born, when we are born, the family we are born into, and to some extent, even the relationships that we develop, especially early on in our lives. These things are all controlled by fate or destiny or chance or coincidence — whatever name you want to give it. Basically, it’s out of our hands.
But these things determine so much of our lives. Almost all of it. I’ll never ever get to live a life where I was born and brought up in a different setting, had a totally different set of options to choose from when making life decisions. What if I had grown up in a different country, to a different set of parents, had different friends, a different lifestyle?
Perhaps you’ve had similar fantasies too, huh? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live a different life? Like that of your classmate, who is now jet-setting across the world? Or that of the neighborhood kid who made it big in the entertainment industry? Or perhaps how your own life would have been different had you focused more on sports than on studies, or if you were an extrovert, jumping from one party to the next, instead of being an introvert, spending your weekends writing? 😉
Even changing one thing, like the city I was born in, would’ve given me a completely different life. A different school, different friends, different relationships, different scars and different memories. Now, imagine all the possible combinations in which the different variables that affect our lives could’ve been combined. What you get are a zillion different lives that we could’ve lived had one or more things been different than what they were in our life.
What kind of a person would I have been in those lives? How much of the current “me” would I be, had any one of those variables been different? Would I have even cared about the difference? Living those “other” lives, would I even be the kind of person who would even think about such things? Would I have longed for the life I currently have? What would my days look like then? What would it be like to have those experiences that I’ll never, ever get to have in this life? Would I have been happier?
Note that I’m not talking about lives that I could’ve led, had I made different choices. So, for example, I might have an option to work in a different city, but for whatever reason, I chose not to take up the job in that city. Had I taken it, my life would again be different. But I’m not considering these lives in the current context. I had the option to live that life; I just didn’t choose that life for myself. What I’m talking about here are lives that I didn’t even have the option to pursue. Lives that were lost to me, without me even knowing or being able to do anything about.
Also, don’t get me wrong — I’m not saying I want a different life, that I’m being ungrateful for the life that I already have. I know I’m more blessed than many others out there, who are far more deserving of the things that I have. And when talking about those “other” lives, I’m not excluding lives that would’ve been far much worse (like growing up in a society ravaged by war or poverty) — certainly not the lives I’d like to have had. I’m just wondering what it would’ve been like, living a different life, good or bad.
There are so many things happening in the world every day and every minute. So many experiences to be had. But, as an individual, we get to experience such a limited version of it all. Of course, we can work towards trying to have those experiences, but we’ve already missed out on so many of them, and it’s unlikely that we can ever have all the experiences that we want to have. So, I think, no matter who one is, where they are, what life they have, at some point, they must wonder: “what if…?”
I also think that this “wondering” is one of those uniquely human characteristics. And that this fascination with the lives that we might have had, is one of the reasons, if not the most important one, behind the power that stories hold over us. Stories — be it through books, movies, songs, the “celebrity culture” — are outlets for our longing, our wonder, where the characters do and experience things that we, either are not able to, or, have the chance to. Stories give us a way to live the lives that otherwise we will never be able to.
Now, some people might say it’s a waste of time to think about these “what ifs”, about things that we can’t really do anything about. And maybe they are right. And we certainly do need to be careful lest we become too obsessed with our “what ifs” and let them affect our life negatively.
But I believe, with just a touch of wisdom, of understanding what is real, what can’t be, and what should be, indulging our imagination, just occasionally, could be the much needed spark that motivates us into trying out a new path, one that just might lead us to a better, more fulfilling life.
Even if it doesn’t help us directly, it might just turn some of us into storytellers. A world with a few more storytellers and their stories wouldn’t be such a bad thing, now would it? 🙂
Originally published at echoesintheether.wordpress.com on December 31, 2017.
