“What would life be like if I went back in time? “How would life be like if I didn’t exist?” Now don’t lie to me, you’ve probably had this form of self questioning before. Questioning life is a normal, almost essential part of life. Everyone has this moment, and I personally question this quite so often. Questioning existence is essential to the development of growing up. Life has many scenarios and moments you’d probably wish never happened or wish you could tweek and assume that a better (beneficial) outcome would be the end goal. However, have you ever tried pinpointing what would happen if you removed yourself from the equation or have changed a small part of that scenario?

During my freetime (or always when I find myself alone with my thoughts), I find myself doing these small questions and trying to imagine the endless possibilities. Personally, I do this alot with the theory of time travelling. I’m a big fan of the time travel idea, or the idea of going through many timelines. It’s funny, I wouldn’t necessarily change anything major in history like killing Hitler or stopping 9/11 (trust me I’d love to contribute in preventing and stopping the damaged caused but if you know time travel theories, that would drastically change history and life today), but instead I’d selfishly change little snippets of my own life. Yes that sounds like a dick move but let’s be frank here, changing any course of historical moment could alter the fabric of reality. And since I’m just a nobody from New Jersey, I don’t think much can be altered in life if I change a small part of mine.

Through this sense of reasoning, I begin to think of possible moments in time I would love to go back to or I desperately want to change. Examples being: warning a love one of their untimely death and preventing it, not breaking up with someone you still have feelings for, making up work you didn’t do, or something dumb like cheating on a test. Yes, I could have done easier things like cheat the lottery or won something big but that’s fairly simple and a cliche thing to do. It’d be helpful, but isn’t worth saving a life or fixing lively mistakes. Nonetheless, time travel and preventing or fixing moments in my life become a part of my way of thinking, which leads to a bigger question at hand… “What if I didn’t exist? How much of the world would be affected if I didn’t exist?”

Now I get it, it sounds emo as hell to sit and think about life without me, but have you ever thought about it? Have you ever sat there in the middle of a group hangout and just blindly stared at each and every one of your friends and thought how affected would their lives be without you? Would your friends’ lives be different or would a major change be the result? And would the results be good or worse? And how would your parents and loved ones be affected as well? Personally, not to sound egotistical but I know that a lot of my friends wouldn’t be together as friends if it weren’t for me. Me being a friendly person, I like to bring all my friends together into group activities. Or I know that some of my friends have personal issues that pins them down to wanting to ask for advice or someone to talk to and I know, I’m usually that person there for them.

I even have moments of thinking, “How would people I consider enemies go through life if I didn’t exist?” Again I know, it sounds weird to think like that but think about it, that kid in your class that rubs you the wrong way and gets on your nerves and vise versa, or that toxic friend who stole your ex and is always hating on you… How would their lives be drastically different without you? I like to imagine scenarios like this, and come to a psychological self-love approach. I begin to appreciate my life and those in it. I begin to appreciate all the things I’ve done not only for myself but for the benefit of others and have a fondness for life. Life is too short, and yes I’d love to change little snippets in it but until that time comes… I’d always appreciate what timeline and life I have now.

As should you, as for the world begins and ends with you.