What Might Have Been

 February 26, 2021

“What might have been” can be the four most debilitating words we speak, or four of the most empowering words we speak. 

Young people seldom utter these words. They haven’t had enough life to look back on to wonder how things might have turned out differently. But to old people, these words are stock in trade. We’ve lived long enough to recognize and admit the mistakes we’ve made (unless perhaps, we are politicians), and to wonder how those mistakes have shaped our lives and the lives of those we’ve influenced. We see opportunities missed, love lost, sins committed, and ponder how much better life would have been had we chosen differently. Oh, we had our reasons, our excuses, our justifications, but time has a way of stripping away the veneer of arguments, exposing the reality that we could have done differently. 

The problem with what might have been” is that it takes us down a dead-end road to a fantasy land where nothing real exists. It paralyzes us, preventing us from corrective action, shackling us to those mistakes while we fantasize over the life we will never know. “What might have been” can be debilitating.

On the other hand, “What might have been” can empower us with the life-giving energy of gratitude. I’ve been going to physical therapy for a problem with my left hip. It’s not debilitating; more of an irritation that I wanted to address before it got worse. As I was waiting to be called, I noticed a particular woman in the waiting room. I’m guessing her age to be somewhere in the late forties or early fifties. She wasn’t very tall, but was very obese, belly hanging to mid-thigh and barely able to waddle down the hall to the therapy area. I wondered what had happened in her life to bring her to such a state, and thanked God for my health. I’ve worked at it, but so much of it is a gift that I didn’t earn nor deserve. The family genes were given to me. It could have easily been me waddling down the hallway. 

“What might have been” moved me to gratitude, to prayers of blessing for this woman, and a deeper realization of the debt I owe to God and even to society, as I hold the health I have as a stewardship to be treasured and managed to the best of my ability. When I think of some of the decisions I almost made, and the consequences that would have arisen from them, “what might have been” humbles me and drives me to my knees.

I’m getting old. I don’t have time to wander down the dead end of “what might have been” regrets. I want instead to walk the endless path of “what might have been” thankfulness.