Photo courtesy: Diane Finlayson  |
Everyone has thoughts of what they could have been or what they could have done; if only they could change past events. Traveling through time has been the topic of numerous books, articles and shows over the years. Humans are obsessed with the fascination of traveling back, or forward, to another place in time, either just to visit or to rearrange certain events to their advantage.
Don’t tell me you never dreamed of having the chance to go back to younger days, to return to a time when you were young and change just one tiny thing to make your present life perfect. Throwing the winning pass in a college football game, ice skating to a gold medal, asking that certain someone out on a date, or maybe getting the answers for that all-important final exam.
But therein lies the problem. Human nature will never let us be satisfied with just one little change. Because once a methodology is created, allowing time travel whenever you wish will definitely mean the certain destruction of mankind within hours. Our need for immediate gratification will have to be repeated over and over for each and every event in history while the future is rearranged to meet the personal satisfaction of every time traveler.
All of us know the phrase from school, that for each and every action there is an equal and opposite action. With each change for one person’s benefit, there will be a detriment to another. And like an atomic bomb, there will be a chain reaction of events, wiping man from the face of the earth within days if not minutes.
So think carefully about your plans to go back into the past and rearrange events in your favor. Because planning to return to the present time with riches beyond your wildest imagination may be nothing more than a short dream. While you twisted the events of time to your advantage and skewed the forces of nature to create your wealthy kingdom on earth, someone else planned your annihilation a second after you left. It’s a case of past imperfect, but as a writer, you can always bend reality to your will.
Brian Douglas Coyle, a graduate of Kent State University in Ohio, has over 30 years of experience in the banking industry. He is currently the Community Development Investment Manager at BB&T, the eleventh largest bank in the country. Brian is the author of Soul Riders and the 2008 release The Devil’s Sanctuary.
