Do you wish you could return to a moment from your past?
To me, most of my past is a time of regularity, of routine, with nothing out of the ordinary really happening. Although it's certainly more stressful now than it used to be (which is perhaps why it's quite tempting to return to my relaxed childhood), reliving snippets from my past would probably be a futile exercise.
Disregarding all the issues I'm already inclined to raise with the implications of backwards time-travel, I realize I don't have the slightest clue in which part I'd even want to return to. The simple reason is that I have no important, defining moments in my life. While there have of course been constant ups and downs, high and lows in my life, I haven't lived long or independently enough to seriously screw myself over or find life-changing success. I suspect this holds true for the majority of people around my age. While there have been times where I've been happier than I usually am or going through better times, nothing stands out. There would be some times that would be nice to revisit, but I struggle to even choose a place in my past to start from.
Even if I did have an idea as to what I want to relive, I'd have to ask myself what I could accomplish with the chance. Many people might want to relive a portion of their life to fix a mistake or drastically change the rest of their existence; but again, this wouldn't apply to me. I don't have any defining moment, anything I desperately want to change. There's places where I wish I had said something witty or taken the chance to get some free food, but that's all trivial. To significantly change the course of my life, I'd probably have to redo a large portion of it, and there's no guarantee that the change would be positive.
However, I have to admit that it's tempting to jump back to the past, not because of the potential to redo my life, but to return to the less stressful times with less responsibilities. It's definitely been more than once that I've complained to a friend (or the other way around) about wanting to jump five years back and forget about college and independence. Being a shrimp of a middle-schooler wasn't as fun, but messing around and not worrying much about a laughable homework load definitely made it better. As tantalizing as the prospect of going back to that kind of lifestyle is, time eventually messes everything up. The seconds add up and before I know it, I'm a high-schooler again, agonizing about my GPA and college apps. The years add back up and bring you back to where you are now. Therefore, I think returning to a moment from the past would simply be a futile attempt to escape from the future, despite the initial allure of the idea. Although my tendency for procrastination may contradict the following sentiment, I'd rather just struggle through whatever joy, sadness, or monotony is to come without yearning for impossibilities that actually would hold little impact for me. And besides, time doesn't give a damn what I think; it'll always continue to push me forward without the slightest glance backward.
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