Did you ever wonder what it would be like if you had made different decisions in your life? The choices we make have the power to change our destiny.

If we could start all over again with a clean slate, back to the beginning, what would we do differently?

The Chaos Theory from the movie The Butterfly Effect, states, “It has been said that something as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wing can ultimately cause a typhoon halfway around the world.”

I saw the movie the other night. It was unique and intricate. It made me think about my life circumstances, and my decisions in life and about what would have happened had I made different choices. Nothing would be the same today. My children wouldn’t be here and my life would have taken a different turn.

The Butterfly Effect is about a boy, Evan Treborn, who grew up in a small town with his single working mom and his friends. He suffers from memory blackouts in which he suddenly finds himself somewhere else in time. His mom and friends believe he is making up these blackout episodes. As Evan grows older, he has less of these spells, but keeps a diary of his blackout moments as therapy for himself. His blackouts take him back to the past where he sees the same events over and over.

In one, he saves the life of a woman and child. In doing this, he loses both arms. He sees that if he hadn’t saved their lives, he would still have his arms, but the woman and child would have died. Through these blackout sessions, he realizes that if even one little thought or action changes, everything in the future would be totally different for everyone involved.

As Evan figures out, through reading the diary, he can go back into the past to change things and create a different outcome in the present moment. Yet, the result isn’t always what he thinks it will be.

There’s a ripple effect
in all that we do,
what you do touches me,
what I do touches you.
 

Wouldn’t it be awesome to go back and change the past - to have things as we want them to be? It reminds me of the movie, Somewhere in Time where Richard, a young writer, played by Christopher Reeve, tries to figure out how to go back in time to win the heart of Elise, played by Jane Seymour, the woman he first met and fell in love with in another time. Present day Richard is determined to be with Elise again.

He finds a book about time travel. He dresses himself in clothes from the time period with a pocket watch, striped suit, vest and even a derby hat. He uses self hypnosis to regress himself as he lays on the bed in his room in the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, MI. He practices many times going back to the past before it finally works for him. He broke through and discovered a way into the past. He connected with Elise and was ready to be with her permanently. A penny from the current year snaps him back to the present time. He could no longer back. The opportunity was gone. Things were as they had been.

We can’t go back to change the past. Even if we could, the result might not be what we hope for. We CAN, however, focus on the “now” by being in the present and being conscious of every moment.

Today and tomorrow can be
very different from yesterday
if you can let yesterday go
and focus on today.
 

Now is the time to make changes. We can imagine releasing the past and lighten up our “now” in order to pave the way to a more positive future.

To this day, the Grand Hotel has a several year waiting list for those who want to stay in the same room that Richard and Elise stayed in when the movie Somewhere in Time was made.

If I could reach the stars
I’d give them all to you
then you’d love me,
love me like you used to do...
If I could turn back time.

Gerri Magee is director of advertising and public relations and assistant to the editor of phenomeNEWS. She continues to share her thoughts “On The Path” in this column. You can write her at gerri@phenomenews.com.