Books to Blogs #29
Book: 3000 Unique Questions About ME
Question #2578
Prompt: “If you could turn back time and purchase shares in one company, which one would it be? Why?”
Well, this is interesting.
I wrote this post on October 21.
Back to the Future Day.
And out of 3,000 questions, the one I landed on asks me what company I would purchase shares in if I could turn back time.
Seriously?
Of all the questions.
Of all the days.
Here we are.
Naturally, my mind immediately went to Back to the Future.
What if Doc Brown pulled up in the DeLorean and said:
“Get in. We’re going back.”
Where would I go?
And because apparently my time-travel adventure needed a soundtrack, the next thing that popped into my head was Cher singing:
If I could turn back time…
Now we’ve got a DeLorean, Cher, and an investment portfolio.
Let’s go.
At first, I started thinking about the obvious answers.
Apple.
Amazon.
Microsoft.
Google.
Go back far enough, buy shares, hold onto them, and wait.
But then another thought came into my mind.
The first light bulb.
Imagine being there when someone was developing the earliest electric lights and somehow knowing what electricity and energy would eventually become.
Think about that.
Something that once seemed new, experimental, and perhaps even impossible eventually became something we can’t imagine living without.
If I could go back knowing what I know now, what would I invest in?
And that’s when I realized I wasn’t thinking about the question anymore.
At least, not just the financial part of it.
I started thinking about what else I would do if I could turn back time.
I would travel more.
I would start a business sooner.
I would tell myself:
Write the book.
Don’t keep thinking about writing it.
Don’t wait for the perfect time.
Write it.
I’d tell my younger self to trust her intuition.
That one might be one of the biggest.
When something doesn’t feel right, pay attention.
When something does feel right, pay attention to that too.
You don’t always need someone else to validate what you already know.
I’d probably tell her to wait a little longer before making certain decisions about love and marriage.
Make better choices.
Learn more about yourself first.
Figure out who you are before deciding who you want beside you.
I’d tell her there is no rush.
And I’d travel.
Oh, would I travel.
I’d see more places.
I’d experience more cultures.
I’d take some of those trips I thought I could always take later.
I’d explore.
I’d probably buy some property too.
And yes, I would absolutely buy some stock.
Actually, if I’m traveling back with everything I know today, I’m making a list before I get into that DeLorean.
But here’s the problem.
If I’ve learned anything from time-travel movies, it’s that changing one thing can change everything.
What happens if I make a different choice?
Where does that road lead?
Who do I meet?
Who don’t I meet?
What opportunities appear?
Which ones disappear?
What parts of my life today no longer exist because I decided to change something yesterday?
That’s where turning back time gets complicated.
Because hindsight gives us something we didn’t have when we were actually living those moments:
The ability to see farther down the road.
When I look at this photograph I took of the road at night, that’s what I see.
The headlights illuminate what’s immediately in front of us.
Not what’s five miles ahead.
Not what’s around the next turn.
Not the destination.
Just enough road to keep moving.
And isn’t that how most of us live?
We make decisions based on what we know at the time.
We choose a direction.
We move forward.
Sometimes we discover we made a great choice.
Sometimes we wonder what on earth we were thinking.
Sometimes we turn around.
Sometimes we take another road.
And sometimes we don’t understand where a particular road was taking us until years later.
It’s easy for the person standing farther down the road to look backward and say:
You should have known.
But how could we?
We didn’t have today’s perspective.
We didn’t have today’s experience.
We couldn’t see that far ahead.
We only had the headlights.
So, would I change things if I could turn back time?
Yes.
There are choices I would make differently.
There are investments I would make.
There are places I would go.
There are opportunities I would take sooner.
There are things I would tell myself not to worry so much about.
And there are probably a few times when I would grab younger me by the shoulders and say:
Trust yourself.
But would I want to change everything?
No.
Because then I wouldn’t know where the new road would lead.
Maybe that’s the bigger lesson hiding inside a question that started out asking me which company’s stock I should have bought.
I can’t turn back time.
None of us can.
But I can look at the road I’m standing on today and ask a different question.
Twenty years from now, what will I wish I had invested in today?
Not just financially.
What experiences?
What ideas?
What relationships?
What dreams?
What parts of myself?
Maybe there’s something sitting in front of me right now that looks as insignificant as that first light bulb once did.
Maybe there’s another book to write.
Another business idea to explore.
Another place to travel.
Another opportunity I haven’t recognized yet.
Maybe the lesson isn’t to wish I could go back knowing what I know now.
Maybe it’s to use what I know now to decide where I go next.
Because I’m still on the road.
I still can’t see all the way to the destination.
I can only see what’s illuminated in front of me.
And maybe that’s enough.
Reflection Questions:
If you could turn back time, what would you invest in?
What would you tell your younger self?
What would you change?
What would you make sure you didn’t change?
And twenty years from now, what might you wish you had started, purchased, explored, or believed in today?
Theresa
Hello from Theresa
Flexible Being
Empowering Your Journey to Healing, Clarity, and Self-Discovery.
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Theresa Martinez-Shapiro
Theresa Martinez-Shapiro is the founder of Flexible Being, a Reiki Master, Certified Oracle Guide, intuitive mentor, and writer based in Stockton, California. Through Musings of a Flexible Being, she explores healing, mindfulness, relationships, intuition, and personal growth with a grounded yet spiritual approach.
