The balmy ache: A meditation on lives not lived

Life is a rollicking carnival of choices. Each ticking moment unfurls a crossroads. Every decision is a new ride. Some picks are small potatoes: turn left or right, eat out or cook, wear blue or white. Others? Oh, they’re seismic: study engineering or literature, join the family business or chase fortune abroad, say “I do” to this soul or that one. Each choice spins a web of fresh possibilities, like a kaleidoscope twisting into brilliant new patterns. A chance encounter, a moment’s hesitation, a reckless act—these send ripples through our lives, reshaping our story in whispers or roars.

The Crossroads of Choice

Uncertainty accompanies every decision. Each path has its own sparkle and shadows, its own beauty and burden. We cannot wander down them all. The unchosen paths are like elevator buttons we didn’t press. The roads not taken recede behind us like doors closing in a long, echoing corridor. Our lived reality crystallises into a singular narrative. The shimmering multitude of possibilities solidifies into one unalterable past, like a snow globe settling after a shake.

Yet the roads we didn’t take never truly vanish. They linger like mischievous ghosts, teasing us with what-if whispers. We can’t help but wonder: what if we had chased that wild dream, confessed our feelings to that person, seized that golden chance? These might-have-beens bloom like wildflowers in our memory’s cracks. These legendary alternatives resonate in the theatre of our mind, each with its own happiness and sorrow, chaos and calm. What-ifs are the soul’s cheeky way of time-travelling, hopping between the phantom limbs of possibility.

The 1998 film Sliding Doors splits the protagonist’s life into two timelines—all because she catches or misses a London Underground train. The film birthed the term “sliding-door moment”, now shorthand for those tiny twists that rewrite our fate.

The Haunting Allure of What-Ifs

Oh, the allure of those unlived lives! In one daydream, we’re a Bollywood heartthrob waving to adoring crowds. In another, a monk perched on a Himalayan cliff, sipping enlightenment from a chipped teacup. Or maybe a saxophonist in a smoky jazz den, notes curling like incense. Somewhere, we’re roaring down a highway in a Ferrari, still stumped by life’s big questions. Elsewhere, we’re pedalling a rickety bicycle down a dusty village road, grinning like we’ve cracked the code to happiness. In one universe, we wed our college crush. In another, we’re a carefree singleton, flirting with life itself. And in one particular timeline, we’re just us—but a little taller and with a fuller head of hair, possibly fluent in dolphin.

To ponder these unlived lives is to play hopscotch across dimensions. We saunter through our gallery of alternative selves, admiring them without lugging their baggage. We send them glittery postcards dripping with nostalgia, and they wave back from parallel worlds—some in tailored suits, others juggling grocery bags we forgot at the store, and one riding a unicycle while reciting Shakespeare. The ache and romance of our what-if lives keep us awake to the wild mystery of being.

Forks in Literature, Film, and History

This ache—this bracing tingle of loss—for the unchosen isn’t ours alone. Literature, cinema, and history whisper their own tantalising tales of unlived possibilities.

Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken is the anthem of this longing. His traveller pauses at a fork in a golden wood, knowing the path he skips will become a leafy ghost haunting his memory. The poem strikes a universal chord as it captures the romance of the unseen path.

The 1998 film Sliding Doors spins this idea into a cinematic lark, splitting the protagonist’s life into two timelines—all because she catches or misses a London Underground train. The film birthed the term “sliding-door moment”, now shorthand for those tiny twists that rewrite our fates—like destiny playing peekaboo in a Tube station.

History, too, teases us with its own what-ifs. In the 1930s, Albert Einstein fled Nazi Germany for the United States. What if some obstacle, big or small, had trapped him there? The Manhattan Project—indeed, modern physics itself—might have taken an entirely different trajectory.

Or consider young Adolf Hitler, rejected twice by Vienna’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1907. That decisive “no” sparked a catastrophic career shift. Imagine if they’d said “yes”—Hitler might have spent his life painting moody watercolours of the Bavarian Alps instead of sending world history careening sideways.

Knowing that our current road is the only one we can walk deepens our appreciation for its unique terrain, whether paved with glitter or banana peels. We bloom but once in the garden of existence.  So let’s embrace the gloriously weird life that’s ours—the only one bearing our nameplate.

Embracing Our Singular Path

The world is a forest of forking paths, and we dance down just one. Each choice swings open a door and gently shuts others with a polite but final click. As we carry the carnival of unlived lives within us, we sometimes sigh, “If only I’d…”—then stop short, because we can never truly know.

Our lives are sculpted by chance, choice, and the occasional wild hunch. Life’s most defining moments often hinge on a single choice—a split second of bravery or hesitation, a whim chased or abandoned. A “yes” blurted in breathless haste. A “no” whispered too late. These are the pivotal moments where chance and choice tango, tipping the scales towards the “me” we know today.

Knowing that our current road is the only one we can walk deepens our appreciation for its unique terrain, whether paved with glitter or banana peels. We bloom but once in the garden of existence.  So let’s embrace the gloriously weird life that’s ours—the only one bearing our nameplate. Let’s dive into its quirks and savour its surprises so heartily that our what-if selves peek out from their parallel worlds, cheering, “Bravo, you magnificent legend! We’re doing alright too!” There they are, raising glasses across the multiverse.

We might as well raise one back to them. And finally, raise one to ourselves, too. To the roads taken, the dreams lived, and the beautiful, bewildering adventure of being exactly who we are!

Also by PS Wasu:

https://alotusinthemud.com/journaling-for-healing-personal-growth/