It can’t be a coincidence that this is today’s prompt, as yesterday’s WordPress prompt was asking about conspiracy theories. I actually opted not to write on that one, just because I felt like I was heading down too big of a rabbit hole.
I was originally going to talk a bit about the Kennedy assassination and how I look at the standard definition of a conspiracy: which is simply to say that more than one person took part in it, making the lone-gunman math mathematically flimsy. But what I really wanted to get into was the unknown consequences of such a massive historical event being altered or outright omitted from history.
The one and only Stephen King book I’ve ever read was 11/22/63. In the story, the main character gets an opportunity to travel back in time and prevent the Kennedy assassination. When he finally returns to the present, he’s shocked to learn that America and the world in general are far from the paradise he expected them to be just because Washington had a few more years of “Camelot.” Instead, the world is a broken, almost hellish landscape plagued by ongoing conflicts and disasters.
It really brings to mind the cinematic rules of time travel—like the classic butterfly-effect theory in Back to the Future, where altering the past fundamentally rewrites your actual present, versus the Avengers: Endgame realization that changing the past doesn’t fix your home timeline, it just splinters off an entirely separate reality.
I bring all this up because the truth is, if I had the opportunity to change one thing from history, I wouldn’t. That’s not to say there aren’t unimaginable tragedies I wish hadn’t happened. However, I think that simply pulling one monumental event from history would have untold, chaotic consequences upon the world. I’m a firm believer in the butterfly effect: that changing one variable, no matter how insignificant it seems, can radically reshape reality.
It’s funny how a daily prompt about changing the past hits close to home. Regular readers of the blog know Sierra – we actually started talking almost seven years ago on a dating app, only to pass each other like ships in the night when I ended up back with X2 for one last run and she got into a long-term relationship.
Earlier tonight, through a casual relationship questionnaire exchange, she admitted to me that she wishes we hadn’t stopped talking six years ago. I told her the truth: I would give just about anything to have those six years back. But at the same time, if we had gotten together back then, I wouldn’t be the man that I am today. I wouldn’t have gone through the trials by fire that got me to this exact moment in 2026.
At the end of the day, I wouldn’t change anything, simply because I’m happy now. But sometimes… sometimes I think I’d trade almost anything to claw those six years back.
On that, less than one month ago, I wrote a post called The Math of the Last Six Years. In it, I said that one day I might want those six years back. I did not even make it one month before the regret set in. Unreal…
Neither my father nor my grandfather made it to 71—my dad stopped at 67—so I’m acutely aware that I’m running in the last quarter of my life right now. That realization is a big part of why I’m trying to take better care of myself physically, exercise more, and eat a little bit better.
I want those six years back. And if the universe won’t give them to me by changing the past, I plan on defying it by taking them out at the other end.
Sometimes, the timeline we actually lived through—with all its historic pain, wrong turns, and delayed arrivals—is the necessary price of keeping the world, and yourself, intact. Some doors are just better left unopened until the exact right moment.
Rebuilding a life takes grit, consistency, and a lot of ‘Option C’ thinking. Having crossed the 1,000-day milestone, I’m now charting the territory beyond. The mission remains the same: No glitz. Just the work. New to the blog? Start your journey here to see the blueprint and the ‘Tricorder’ perspective behind the rebuild.
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The article “Defying the Universe: Why I Wouldn’t Change a Single Thing” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob
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