Taking Bold Actions.

How would you react if you fell asleep and woke up back in your primary school classroom, only to find out that your entire life after that was only a dream? This is one question people randomly ask sometimes, for fun.

The response to this question would either be laughing it off or making jests, but behind these jokes you would find that people, even just for a moment would silently ask themselves - what would I have done differently?

A friend pointed out to me that recently, almost every movie franchise wants to explore the theory of the multiverse. That is the belief that there are different dimensions, or universes apart from this one, with copies of us, which may be completely different people. And that these movies attract so much audience attention while recording impressive Box office figures.

A common feature in these films being that what separates these dimensions is a point of decision, where the opposite of what a character chooses completely equals a totally different life. A perfect example is the 2022 classic- Everything Everywhere All at Once, that earned Malaysian actress- Michelle Yeoh, her first Oscar, making her the first Asian woman ever to win the Academy Award for Best Actress. While not going into much detail, the movie explored different universes, where her character’s life in each universe was significantly different based on her making a particular decision.
It could be argued that the reason such movies perform so well is that consciously or sub-consciously, everybody wonders about the possibilities of what could be if they had chosen a different path. This naturally ties into a deeper human desire, to be the best version of oneself, and many believe that the best version of their selves is some “perfect future self” and make choices in a bid to fit in to this picture.

The problem however lies in that “perfect” doesn’t give room for failure, losses, or being less than. So most people put themselves in mental cages, stifling their potential, because they believe they would be more productive when they have gotten to the best versions of themselves. They think they are not enough now, so it's best to play it safe until they are.

This doesn’t quite make sense, as we don’t get do-overs in life. Life is not meant to be merely survived; it’s meant to be lived. Playing it safe, until some time later when we think its all going to “click” cheats us of all we could be now. Living entails doing the things that we want to do, the things that give life meaning, the things that drive us towards making our mark in this world. Living means acknowledging every moment of every day by daring to do the things that we imagine we are capable of.

Living is possible when we open our minds to the possibilities, and take actions to bring those imaginations to life. If we silence those imaginations, for fear of not fitting into our “perfect picture” we end up just surviving, just doing the bare minimum to get through each day, not fulfilled, not passionate and perpetually in wonder of what could have been.

Playing it safe is the base instinct of every living thing, but we should refuse to be basic, we should choose to live not just survive, we should not keep dreaming of some perfect self but see that we are the best of ourselves now, and give all of ourselves to live today, because if we don’t, when we arrive as what we deem is our “perfect self” we may find ourselves wondering- What could I have done differently?

^{Images belong to me except stated otherwise.}

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