HopeK429

When we think about time, we tend to divide it into three dimensions: past, present, future. We also tend to accept certain beliefs about each dimension without much questioning.The present time is the “here and now.” It’s what’s currently happening. The future, alternatively, is what will happen. It’s what will come to be.In both of these dimensions, there are many possibilities. We could do all sorts of things right now, and we can make all kinds of choices in the future. (Ignore, at least for the moment, the debate over whether we really have free will.)Unlike the present and the future, the past is locked in. Short of inventing the elusive time machine, there’s not much we can do to change the past. We simply have to accept it and move on. Or do we? The past lives in our memories, and these memories are far from reliable. We are the unreliable narrator of our own story. We might exaggerate our successes or magnify our failures out of proportion. These tendencies are not mutually exclusive: we might do both at the same time! Think back on a time in which you really wanted something and didn’t get it. You wanted to gain the acceptance or approval of someone. You wanted a relationship to succeed. You wanted to be offered a job or admission to a certain college or a better paying job, maybe,,. Whatever it is, you wanted it badly, even desperately—and you didn’t get it.When you failed to achieve your goal, you experienced feelings of despair. For a long time afterwards, it hurt to think about it. You wondered if you should have tried harder or done something differently. (We’ve all been there!)As painful as it was, however, you eventually reached a turning point. Something else came along that wouldn’t have been possible in the alternative universe you so desired—yet, clearly, this new thing turned out to be much better.Looking back later, you see the original situation in a whole different light. Now you understand that instead of that situation serving as a low point of your life, something you always wish had turned out differently, it’s taken on another role entirely: the time you didn’t get what you wanted, thank God. Just think about that. The thing you most wanted was the very thing you didn’t need.This isn’t simply a matter of interpretation. In these situations, the past is literally different because of something that took place … in the future.Now imagine that your family takes a DNA test, and you discover that your Dad is not your biological father. This actually happened to me after my Dad had passed away in 2009, do I believe it no still to this day in all reality I don't but test results do not lie 99.99% not biological therefore I am forced to believe , he passed and never knew and never questioned not being my Bio father,the disclosure created years of turmoil within my family. If I hadn’t taken the test, the family dynamics and sense of shared history (regardless of its accuracy) would have endured.My Birth Mother left us when I was 7 years old , she waited until I was 42 to rock my world . I talked to her 3 times in 35 years the last time was telling her NO I wouldn't bail her out of a financial mess she caused, I could have cared less what happened to her, You could argue that new information shouldn’t have so much power. My family was happy, or at least stable, before learning that a secret had been held for more than thirty years. Why shouldn’t everyone just accept that “something is different, but most things are still the same?”I was and am still their sister it wasn't me who kept a secret it was our Mother,,,As I said, whether or not they should or shouldn’t is irrelevant. The status quo was an impossible outcome: the family could no longer see the past the same way ever again. Substantial new information changes the past.Think of time travel by changing the future as a tool you can use in dealing with time anxiety. It doesn’t work all the time—just consider the classic quote, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”—but sometimes it’s a lifesaver.We want so much to go back and change things that happened long ago, or even something that happened yesterday. But the way we remember the past is greatly influenced by what we do in the future.The next time someone says “You can’t change the past,” you’ll know better. You’re changing the past every day! The past also changes on its own, merely through the passage of time and events outside your control.By taking control of your future—and by paying close attention—you’ll notice that the past is fluid and subject to change.But it is You who is incontrol of how you react to it, Our past DO NOT define who we are in life and should never compromise our futures by dwelling on it, My Dad was my Dad regardless of any results I may have read Nothing on Heaven or Earth could ever change that,The moral of the story is: you just have to choose. If, in the end, you look back and think “I’m so glad that choice was made for me to know things or ,” perhaps this is merely positive self-talk. But perhaps it also doesn’t matter. Since you’ll never know for certain one way or another, you might as well choose to be happy with where you ended up.Regret, meanwhile, is an emotion hindered by bias—sometimes helpful for making a decision to move forward, but rarely definitive in our interpretation of the ideal life. My Life was far from normal or ideal but it was my Life and it has shaped and molded me into the person I am today and for that I am grateful.