i drive a 2012 chevy malibu, not a DeLorean

    Sometimes, and i know im not the only one, I get caught up with how things could have been different or changed.  Whether its a mistake or some neutral decision, was the other option better?  Whether its with school, sports, relationships, family, I always feel like there's always a nagging desire to turn back time and see if I could've done it better.  Could i have made my high school experience better just by doing a few things differently? 

    Time travel would be handy.

    or would it?

    Depends on how it works.  

    If its like Terminator or Looper, It wouldn't matter, I would just go back in time and set into motion events that were meant to happen in the reality I already live in.  The "Bootstrap paradox" stems from this.  At that point I don't truly have free will, as I am a prisoner to my future and whether I mess up or don't, isn't exactly my own choice.  

Seeing the future would have a similar effect.

    A time loop like Groundhog Day or Edge of Tomorrow seems like it would just suck.  If it takes as many tries to figure out the way to succeed as it did for Tom Cruise's character to figure out how to beat the aliens, then I don't think I'm meant to succeed.  I mean life does seem pretty repetitive, but that's all and well going to change.   Also Emily Blunt's character, who fell in love with him (in one day?) completely forgets the events (because they didn't happen) so he saved the world but he couldn't have it all.  

    If it's like the Marvel Universe (think Avengers: Endgame for a well known example), I would be creating a separate timeline by changing events.  So there will still be a version of me who "screwed up" as opposed to the me that didn't.  

    Traveling to the future seems inconsequential, but also pointless for fixing mistakes.  Unless its like the German show DARK, in which the future also affects the present.  But that world is terrible, depressing, filled with incest, and just overall not a great time - so i hope if time travel does exist it doesn't end up like that.  

    The ideal situation is like Back to the Future, a simple version where what you change in the past changes the future.  But you have to be careful, sure i could fix my problems, but I could also erase my existence (leading to the "Grandfather Paradox").  A small change could cause big ripples in any direction.

Sure I can wish certain things could have gone differently but they went this way for a reason.  If my dad

or mom had the power to fix a mistake or change an important decision after the fact - maybe I would never have existed!  

    Well the point is that time travel won't fix my problems.  In all the aforementioned stories, time travel actually creates more, other, difficult decisions - and there is still conflict and consequences and growth from those things for the characters (otherwise what kind of story would it be?)  Marty has to make sure his parents still get together; simply going back in time doesn't ensure that all the Infinity Stones are in possession; and what would you do if the only solution to fix the world was to get rid of the time travel you have (Dark and Edge of Tomorrow)?   

    A simple solution to problems never truly exists - because if you think it does it opens other problems up, but everything leads you to become who you are.  Siddartha couldn't have found enlightenment without gambling everything away.  Santiago couldn't have found his treasure without having a thief steal his money from the start.  If they were able to go back and fix those mistakes - what would they become?

    Its pointless to focus on if it could be better or worse - it just is!  I'm not Marty McFly, i'm a senior in high school living in the present with a lot of good things going for him, and i turned out that way through the way high school, and life, went.  I've learned that i just have to live with that - even though sometimes that belief can get swayed.   Regret is natural but not worse than potentially ending the world via the butterfly effect and you eating an orange in 2022 causes mass nuclear detonation that ends the world 2 years later.