First and foremost, I need to announce the winner of the headband! I used Random.org to pick the winning number and it was 2! That was
Heidi Nicole at Run Around Aroo! Please email me (katieanneschmidt@aol.com) your mailing address and headband choice so Emily can send out your headband. I promise, you will love this thing!!
It is amazing the factors that go into picking the winner of a random contest. How many people entered, how many entries, the order in which they were entered, the time of day I picked the winner. If any of those factors were different than there would be a different winner. This of course had my mind wandering (it tends to do that) to the Butterfly Effect. In case you don't read chaos theory in your spare time, the Butterfly Effect states that something as small as a butterfly flapping its wings can cause someone else to win a headband....okay it was actually something about causing a tornado in Texas. Basically, the tiniest things can have huge impacts on the future.
It is an interesting theory, but a dangerous place to let your mind linger.
What if? What if I had done this? What if I hadn't done that? Would my life be unicorns and rainbows instead of the crap I'm dealing with now? My guess is a "what if" has already popped into your head. We all go to that "what if" place at times. Maybe it is a big thing like cancer, an accident, a personal tragedy. Maybe it is a little thing like getting pulled over or breaking your freaking big toe. Yeah, in case you haven't guessed I have found myself playing last Friday afternoon in my head and saying "what if...." What if that butterfly hadn't flapped its wings and I didn't break my toe right in half.
Though we often entertain these thoughts, they are completely useless...unless you have a Delorean and a flux capacitor.
 |
| Oh Doc Brown! I know it would mess up the space/time continuum, but can you please take me back to Friday around 1:00ish....oh and maybe back to the day we saw Bug in the pet store. |
We can not change what has already happened. We can't go back and run faster in a race. We can't train harder for an event that has already occurred. We can't un-injure ourselves no matter how much we want to. All we can do is accept the present and look for the silver lining. Good things can come from bad situations. Don't we grow and learn so much in our most adverse times (and no, I don't think having a broken toe is my most adverse time!)?
Sometimes bad things happen for a reason, something they just happen. But if we spend all our time in "what if" land we can miss out on the good stuff that comes from the bad.
I am off to the gym this morning(!) for some upper body weight lifting. I'll try not to cry when I pass the treadmills.
What is your biggest "what if?"
