There are people that believe we only live once, while others believe that we can reincarnate and come back to live multiple lives. Not only can we live different lives, but we can also live the same life multiple times. For example, a human male can come back and do a retake on his life after he dies. If he is still unsatisfied with the first and second versions of his life, he can choose to come back and do it all over again for the third time. Another idea is that after we experience the lifetime of one living being, like the life of a human, then we can choose to change and reincarnate as a different lifeform such as coming back as a cactus or a tiger. Elaborating on the idea of being able to live the same life multiple times but changing certain aspects of that original life story is what will be the focus for the remainder of this writing.
We are so focused on the belief that this is the one and only life that we get to live, and if so, we should live it to the fullest. With this one lifetime concept in mind, it’s interesting that a vast majority of people are miserable with their lives. They don’t like their job, their intimate partner, their living condition, or their family. They may be feeling lonely, isolated, or misunderstood. What happens if we take away the aspect that this is your only life to live, and you can come back and do this all over again, but next time change a few things? Would round two be any better? Would you live fearlessly? Would you be more adventurous and take more risks now? I wonder whether people would be equally as miserable or worse? Perhaps the second or third version of their life would finally start to bring happiness to their life story?
Imagine for a moment how differently you would live if you were told early on that you could do a re-take on your life. For example, what if after you died in the first go of your life story that you could review how that story played out, highlight the parts that didn’t go quite as planned or as desired, and be able to come back and do it all over again with the intent to get it right this next round? You could take a deep dive into the parts that were less than happy during round one. You could maybe avoid that divorce or toxic relationship, perhaps appreciate someone better, or spend more quality time with someone in your life who didn’t have much time left in your story. You could make different decisions like not to have so many kids or conversely to go ahead and become a parent this time around. The possibilities would be endless in terms of what you could do differently. And to make things even easier, what if you could do a third take on your life story? Meaning if you didn’t quite learn all that you were supposed to from the first and second attempts, then you might get another chance to do it right on the third attempt. Would you want to continue to take the same course over and over again until you got the grade that you were hoping to get in the class? How would having this opportunity to keep retaking the course change your behavior during the very first round of the course? Would you suddenly want to get it right from the get-go, so that you could graduate to the next course/level?
Consider what it would be like if you lived the first version of your life and have some regrets. After you die you must face the people who you had hurt, scarred, angered, etc. Following those difficult discussions, you are given the choice to come back and try again with the same characters as in the first version. Would you want to risk fixing the original mistakes, but possibly making new mistakes in the second version? How many rounds of this life would be reasonable for you to move on to the next level?
These questions are posed here, to help each of us ponder our own life choices and the emotions that we assign to our past, present, and future. Although we don’t know for certain whether this will be a single life existence or if we’ll have the ability to live additional lifetimes, it is important to reflect on our current life and perhaps appreciate it now while we are able to do so (just in case this is the only life that we’ll ever have).
Happy living is authentic living. When you are doing the things that come natural to you, then you tend to be “in the zone.” When we undertake things that are more challenging to our natural self, then we start to procrastinate or practice avoidance. This holds true for the people that we select for our life story. There are some people that we meet who we feel comfortable being our genuine self around, without any filters. We feel safe around these people because they accept us as is, without asking us to change. Other people who enter our life story may cause us to act a certain way around them, which veers from us behaving as our true self. When we feel that we have to be or look different from our original self, then we feel like impostors and phonies. This usually makes us feel less than because we aren’t tapped into our genuine self. Sometimes we put on a show to please others. We may even sacrifice our true desires or self to appease someone else. Plenty of kids, teens, and adults live phony lives. There are individuals who live to make others happy, at the expense of making themselves miserable. A heavy price to pay in what may be a one take lifetime.