Every decision you make creates a future. But very few people stop to think about what it destroys. Every choice you make closes the door on countless other possibilities. The moment you choose one path, thousands of alternative versions of your life quietly disappear. The university you didn't attend. The city you never moved to. The friendship that never began. The opportunity you almost accepted. The person you could have become. Life is often described as a journey forward, but it is also a process of constant elimination. For every version of you that exists today, there are countless versions that don't. Maybe there was a version of you who became an artist. A version who started a business. A version who took a risk when everyone else played it safe. A version who said "yes" instead of "no." We'll never meet those versions. Yet they remain fascinating because they remind us how powerful small decisions can be. The strange thing is that people often obsess over the paths they didn't take. They imagine better outcomes. Better circumstances. Better lives. But the truth is that every path contains challenges that cannot be seen from a distance. The future you didn't choose wasn't guaranteed to be better. It was simply different. Perhaps the lesson isn't to mourn every version of yourself that never existed. Perhaps it's to appreciate the one that does. Because out of all the possibilities, this is the version currently holding the pen. And the story isn't finished yet.
