CTRL + Z

There is no undo button in life. In a way that is a very good thing because the one constant about life is that “it goes on”. And it does. And it always will.

On the other hand it would be nice to be able to undo now and then. Not everyday, I don’t mean when you’ve spilled coffee down your shirt, or want to undo the eating of that double chocolate muffin, but it would be great if you had a few “life undo” tokens available, wouldn’t it?

So let’s say you have one a month. You can only use one per month, you can’t use two then go without the next month, and if you don’t use it, you lose it.

That said, what would I undo? There are some, seemingly, obvious examples which on further inspection would quickly be changed. After all, this is not a magic fix, it is simply an undo and, to drag out another cliche, “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger”.

So perhaps that is why life doesn’t have an undo, because, quite simply, you don’t need one. Do you?

Comments

  1. A further cliché: you learn by your mistakes. But it’s true. Think about how you’ve ever aquired a skill: do it wrong, do it wrong, do it wrong… AH! Do it right!

    Whether a “life undo” would be useful would depend on how it works. If it was a straightforward chronological rewind, you’d have no memory of the thing you’d undone and would thus probably proceed to make the same mistake again. Or maybe not make it, but then never learn that particular lesson.

    If it was a “conscious rewind”, where you had the chance to keep the lesson but prevent making the mistake… well, I’m not entirely sure how that would work, but I suspect it would end badly. The universe would probably explode, or at the very least there’d be a plague of boils, or something.

  2. one a month would be horribly cruel….what if something worse happened just after you’d used it up? “Phew, glad I undid running over the neighbour’s cat…. Oh, crap, did I leave a pan on the stove at home?….”

  3. The economy would grind to a halt on the last day of each month as the entire population sat down to think about what needed to be undone.

  4. I guess that is the point… Frankly Ctrl-F would make as big a difference to life in my household as Ctrl-Z right now tho 😉

  5. Hello! I thought the whole economy had ground to a halt.

    Anyway I am with Gordon’s Mum. It must be an age thing.

    I think even if you had one undo per your life it would be a very dangerous thing. ‘If only’ are the saddest words.

    Anyone ever hear on radio or read ‘The Monkey’s Paw’?
    I heard it …must be 55 years ago and it has the answer to this undo thing.
    Thinking about it my Mum should have had the social workers in for letting me listen to it! It will be on the net somewhere no doubt.

  6. The Ctrl+Z for life is something I could have used In Jan when i got done by the police for having parked for 15 mins with my back wheels on a zig zag. 3 points and £60 fine.

    Draconian, you say? The way they spoke to me you would have thought I’d mown a troupe of schoolchildren down.

    Coulda used that command then I tell you. Would have parked 50cm further up…

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