Existential comics explores a common truth about life. Click through for the full version.
via Two Brothers – Existential Comics.
It took me a long time to recognize the truth this comic explores. Whatever path in life we choose, we’ll always wonder what could have been. And we’ll always feel some regret for missing out on that other path.
This is where I think understanding that libertarian free will does not exist becomes a comfort. Understanding that the decision we made was the only one that could have been made given our genetics and life experiences up to that point, lessens any sense of lost opportunity. Even if quantum mechanics adds a random factor into that decision, it’s not one we would have been responsible for.
None of this is to say that we shouldn’t learn from the results of our past decisions. But we should learn from them in order to improve our future decisions, and then move on, using regret productively and then trying to dispense with it when its usefulness is over.
SelfAwarePatterns 
Although the Many Worlds Interpretation does suggest the intriguing possibility that you actually did make the other choices too…
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If the MWI is true, it’s a pity we can’t communicate with our other selves and compare notes.
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Or maybe it’s a good thing that we can’t!
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