I wish we could do things in whatever order we wanted. Take for example the statement: “If I knew then what I know now…” If time travel were available today (not available at the time of writing – don’t want to have this node dated as soon as somebody stumbles across time travel), hindsight would be a thing of the past (no pun intended)! I would imagine that the time machine would be required to store all the dates and times visited so as to stop any attempts to cause a paradox by visiting oneself.
Having cleared that one up, I would like to outline the order in which I would like to experience life:
- Death - I think that death is going to be a bit of a bummer really, so I’d like to get that one over with pretty quickly
- My 40’s - In order to gain a little life-experience, I think I should spend a bit of it during the “settled” period in which I can relax and soak it all in
- Old Age - this is going to suck a bit too, but at least I’ll have a few “past” experiences from my 40’s to bore my grandchildren with
- My 30’s - A busy time. Career is settling in nicely, buy a house, have kids and start them in school. At least from my experience of my 40’s I’ll know how things are going to turn out and be prepared for them
- My 50’s - Starting to wind down towards retirement. A bit of a rest from the kids as they have left home by now
- My 20’s - having been through most of the older stages I can now tackle this age with a lot more wisdom and forethought
- My 60’s to Old Age - a time of retirement and relaxation before the final assault on life (see last two)
- My Childhood and Teens - there have always been things that I have wanted to go back and do “if only I had known then what I know now” and this will allow me to do so
- Birth - a truly magical experience. I will have all of life’s experiences and be conscious of what is happening to appreciate the miracle that is happening
Looking at this list, it is a little mixed up, but there is a general trend from death to birth. What if we could live life in reverse? Now that’d be kewl…