Stories of “what if” are legendary. Perhaps the most popular and touching is the Christmas classic It’s A Wonderful Life. Modern Day Versions include a current hit on Netflix called Dark Waters, a thriller about a man whose life mysteriously turns upside down and inside out in an instant. It is quite human to look backward and wonder about the might have beens that we did not experience because we chose a particular pathway or because unexpected challenges changed the direction of our lives. 

We all instinctively know that dwelling on our perceived mistakes or misdirections is not only unhealthy but totally useless. We can never go back and probably would not want to even if given a chance to do so. Our best bet is to learn from our past and more positively direct our lives into the future. Nonetheless it is all too easy to critique ourselves and our life choices in hindsight when it would be far better to ask how we might make adjustments in the now that might lead us to a future that is more to our liking. It really is never too late to make constructive changes in how we think and how we choose to live. 

There are so many things in life over which we have little or no control. At the same time we each have the capacity to determine how to react to the many tragedies and challenges that derail us. There are going to be moments that seem terribly unfair, horrors that other people don’t appear to have to endure. There is indeed an inequality in the world in which some individuals and groups seem to always get the short straw while others flit merrily along unaware of all the suffering around them. It can be daunting to keep moving forward when every step forward is followed by being pushed back down. Nonetheless we all know people who have made the best of horrific situations and somehow survived the arrows that incessantly whiz toward them. 

I have great compassion for those who are beaten down. In truth the cards really are stacked against some individuals. I can’t even imagine what kept enslaved people from giving up on life. I wonder what human determination kept them going from one day to the next. I marvel at those who endured the horrors of the Holocaust and went on the live productive and happy lives once they were freed. I don’t know if I would have be able to overcome the humiliation that some groups of people still endure to this very day. We humans have a dark tendency to compound the trials of people that we fear only because they are somehow different from ourselves. We fail to notice that they are much more like us than they are different from us. Every human wants to be loved and to feel safe. Such is a common theme of books, movies and songs. We each dream of a good life and we all fall victim to wondering if things would be better if only we might go back and change our histories and the ways that we humans view the world. 

Of course we know that time traveling backwards is impossible. We can’t save Abraham Lincoln from being assassinated. We can’t make sure that Adolf Hitler never rises to power. I can’t force my father to stay home instead of going for a ride that would end in his death. Such magical thinking does us little good but we can study the here and now and realize new pathways that will take us into the future. We can teach ourselves how to deal constructively with the challenges that will inevitably come our way. We don’t have to be mired in hopelessness. 

There were indeed people inside those concentration camps who mentally fought to maintain their sense of self and purpose. That is not to say that overcoming horrors is ever easy but our personal attitudes can help us if we are determined to survive even hellish situations. We all know someone who has done so. We admire those people greatly even as we wonder if we would have their strength in a similar situation. The human spirit can be a powerful force when we are determined to set things right. Our pasts can guide us, but it is in the present that we design our own futures. With hard work we might carve out a reasonable facsimile of the kind of life that we have always dreamed of enjoying. 

I become like a broken record when I speak of my mother but of all the people I have ever known she is the shining example of overcoming the slings and arrows of misfortune. Her life story reads like a sad tale and yet she rose above the constant streams of misfortune that best her. Born into a large immigrant family in the midst of the Great Depression she experienced prejudice and loss even as a child. She watched her mother being forcefully taken to a hospital after a mental breakdown. She had rocks and insults thrown at her as she walked to school. Her fiancé was killed in battle during World War II and she herself went through a time of great depression over losing him. She found love with my father but when she was only thirty he husband died suddenly leaving her with three children and little money. She somehow glued herself back together to earn a college degree and find a job as a teacher only to be brought down again by mental illness that would plague her for the remainder of her life. She would lose friends and be greatly misunderstood but through it all she maintained a generous and loving outlook on life, embracing people just as they were, loving them even when they chose not to love her. She died surrounded by people who revered her with assurances that hers had been a saintly life. 

There is nothing wrong with accumulating money and things and power as long as such persons also have stored the riches of generosity and compassion in their hearts as well. The present and the future should focus on how we might all get along better. It should develop all of our talents and skills in ways that are meaningful and open to new ideas and change for the betterment of all. In the end if we can say that we have truly loved with all of our hearts and worked to bring joy and comfort to others we will have been successful. Sometimes such a life seems tiny and unexceptional when in truth it really is the most wonderful kind of life of which we might dream.