If given the choice, which time period (past, present, or future) would you like to live in and why?

I feel like this choice is easier for me than I expected.

Yes, there are things I'd like to change in my past. Who doesn't have regrets or, at least, things they think they could've done better?

And, yes, sometimes it would be reassuring to have knowledge of what's to come and/or exciting to skip past some parts of life, but shouldn't all of life be lived?

So, I say that I'd choose to live in the present.

Yes, I am struggling with many things at the moment, but those struggles will shape who I will become. How would I understand myself in the future if I didn't live through the now?

Plus, there are a lot of good things too.

Like my family, my friends, my dog, my plants, and even keeping up this blog.

Also, I am working on things, and that work will also shape who I will become and what I'll do with my life.

Yes, lots of terrible things are happening now, but how can I be one of the helpers if I just skipped over it?

Yes, there are ways my life could be better in the present if I went back and changed things, but do I actually know this?

I know I wrote a list of things I'd change, but if I actually changed those, who would I be? What would my life be like? Better? Maybe! Similar, but just different? Quite possibly! Worse? Who knows?!

If I changed the past, would present me still want to go back and live in the past? Would present me want to skip ahead?

Wrapping my head around this time travel idea is making this a weird post, but oh well, that's bound to happen sometimes when you do a daily blog for like 7 years (can you believe it's been that long?!).

I resisted doing this prompt for a while because I feel like there is often an icebreaker question that I hate that goes like "if you could live in any historical time period, which would it be?" And like, so much of the past is worse than the present in terms of human rights and like medical knowledge. As a woman with asthma and mental health issues, I think I'd be so much worse off in a past that pre-dated me.

If I had to pick between the past and the future, I guess I'd pick the future, but I'd still pick the present over both (although being present is admittedly something I'm still working on).

Which would you pick?

(Prompt provided by Amelia Sacco)

Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash

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