The Life You Didn’t Choose (But Still Think About)
On sunk costs, imaginary alternate lives, and learning to live with the path you’re on.
The Panic
It’s the end of the first month of law school.
And I am standing in the atrium on the phone with my mother telling her that this was all a huge mistake.
I really should have gone to art school after completing my undergrad.
These law school people are not my people, the work is ridiculous, its way too competitive, and above all, its really not what I expected at all. In a bad way.
And, then, I didn’t leave law school. I stayed. I finished.
I don’t know why I stayed. Maybe it was the sunken cost of tuition. Or, that I had made a couple of new friends already and didn’t want to abandon them. Or maybe it was the other sunken cost of having done the LSAT applied to the school, been accepted, and then put in a month of orientation, work, readings, textbook acquisitions, and so forth.
Maybe it was that I had convinced myself: “This is how it is supposed to be.” If everyone around me was miserable, sleep-deprived and desperate to land higher on the curve than the others, then of course I should feel the same way.
The Myth of “It’ll All Be Worth It Later”
And, really, what did that matter? Eventually, I would be so successful (or, make so much money; or, be so respected; or, have enough prestige; or, whatever) that I could put my misery and dislike for what I was doing aside just long and far enough that I could stick it out, and maybe - just maybe - enjoy it.
Or, more likely - maybe it was that I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. My parents. My friends. All those people who I thought had so much riding on me.
They didn’t, by the way. That’s not to say they didn’t care, but, they certainly cared less about what I was doing, and more about how I was doing.
But, it took me years to realize that. Well past the point where I graduated from law school, highly uncertain that I had made the right choice, but very certain that I was going to have my high-paying job on Bay Street, make partner somewhere fancy, and be set (and happy) forever.
I return to that memory in the atrium regularly. More in the past few years. Actually, I kind of forgot about it until about 3 years ago. And then - bang. That memory shows up in a conversation with a therapist or friend or client (I don’t recall which, but I do remember it showing up suddenly).
The Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Fallacy
What was that? Was that the part in the “Choose Your Own Adventure” of my life where I made the wrong choice? Was there even a “wrong” choice? Those of us who grew up with these books (Note: I recently discovered they still publish these, albeit, with better artwork) know that, it doesn’t really matter which choice you make - the book ends. It all works out. Could it work out “better”? Sure, maybe. You escape the planet you are stranded on instead of making a life on that planet with your newfound alien compatriots. In both cases, it “works out”.
Maybe then I am asking the wrong question. Maybe - the question is really, “How would have things worked out if I had chosen differently?”
One way to think about this (H/T to Tim Urban and his amazing blog “Wait But Why?”) is to consider the following diagram:
At any point in time, you literally have infinite directions you could go in. Which means - of course - in the past, you also had infinite directions to go in. You had, as Urban describes, “open” paths.
The problem (or upside) is that, once you are on your life path, the alternative paths immediately close. They disappear. They are gone. YOU CAN NOT GO BACK AND CHOOSE A DIFFERENT PATH despite the fact that yes, at this moment, looking backward, you still have an infinite number of potential future paths.
Because we see choice ahead of us, we think (falsely) that we have choice behind us. There must be some psychological or evolutionary reason for this. I don’t know. And, I don’t need to know.
All I know is that, when I apply my “future thinking mind mode” to the past, I waste energy and time. In that “mode”, I live in this weird, worrying, wondering, regretful, rueful state where a) I don’t really move forward on any of the potential future paths and b) I tell myself stories that are really just corrective past life fantasies.
This is not helpful.
And, what’s interesting is that, I used to think I was the only person who did this.
But, I see now - I am not. I have spoken to so many people lately who wonder, “What if?” About all sorts of things. Yes, mostly career, but honestly - about life partners, about trips they took, about what they studied in school. Even about other things that they literally never had any control over - where they were born, who their parents were, or, whether they were born “naturally” or by c-section.
The Only Question That Matters: “Is This Good Enough Today?”
Well, looking back on my own law school/MFA dilemma, I ask, “Do I actually regret anything I did? Do I regret my choice?”
And, the answer is, “No.” Sure, things might have worked out differently, but that is largely irrelevant.
Going back to Urban’s diagram - all I can do is look at that point on which my path coincides with “Today” line, and ask myself, “Is this good enough?” If so, then it doesn’t really matter which potential paths formed the actual path to date, because, they all worked out to something that, today, is good enough. In fact, it’s probably a lot better than “good enough”.
Letting Go
So, here’s the ask: if you’re ruing the day you went to law school, or took the LSAT, or went to medical school, or dropped out of school entirely. Or, you are regretting the day you proposed to your husband, or the girlfriend you broke up with in high school who may have been the “one”. Or, you are simply wondering how your night would have been had you ordered something else for dinner.
Ask yourself: would I be here, right now, had I not made that choice? And, from this vantage point, if I really let go of the past possible paths, what opens up for me today?
Let me know what you come up with, of if you think this is just nuts. I could go either way. Send me a note here.
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That’s an excellent post. And very interesting diagram about the past and future. You’re an excellent writer.