What Would You Do Differently?

One of the writing prompts for NaBloPoMo is, "If you could redo one moment in your life, what would it be and why? How would it change who you are now?"

Certainly, there are things I'd make better if I could, choices that could have been smarter, impulses that would have been better suppressed, opportunities to be kinder. But there are very few, perhaps not any, single moments in my life that I think of as life-changing.

When I think of things that I wish had been different, things that might have made a significant difference in my life, they are not isolated moments. They are collections of moments, patterns of behavior, trends that developed over time. While it might seem that a moment - saying yes or no, turning right or left - makes the difference, the truth is that the moment exists within a context and is part of a larger sequence that often is not clearly seen or understood until it is complete.

If I could change something in my past, it would be to give my earlier self greater awareness and mindfulness, so that my choices would be made, not just in the moment, but within a larger and more meaningful frame of reference.