If I weren’t where I am right now, where would I be? That is the one question I always find myself asking. What if I got out of bed a minute earlier? What if I said yes to an invitation I denied instead? What if I chose differently? And the list of what if’s just keeps going on and on. Maybe I would be a millionaire right now, but then maybe things might have turned out for the worse. There is no way of knowing how things would have turned out for sure. The only thing you can do is guess, and yet I always find myself dwelling on these decisions. Am I wasting just wasting time or will this help me out in the future? Who knows. But if there is one thing I’ve learned, it is that for every choice you make, a different set of paths open up for you.
Do you ever get bored and scroll through random videos on Youtube, and then you suddenly find yourself on the weird side of youtube? One minute you’re watching your favorite artist’s funny moments and then the next you’re deep into unsolved murder mysteries at 3am? That was the case for me back in junior high when I discovered the concept of the butterfly effect. The concept states that a tiny step done right now could eventually lead to drastic results in the future. Given my tendency to overthink and dwell on the past, the video had a great impact and spoke to me on a personal level.
At the time I came across that video, I was still deciding on what career path to pursue. I’ve been confused all my life as to what I wanted to become or do when I grow older. I had, and still have, a keen interest in fashion ever since I was a child. For as long as I can remember, I wanted to work in that field. I knew what I wanted but I didn’t know what I wanted to be. Not only that, but I also had to consider the practicality and financial aspect of what I was going to pursue. Will the job eventually pay the bills? Or am I just going to gamble on a career path? Again with the never-ending questions to myself. To pursue what I love or to pursue something more pragmatic, a decision students like me usually face.
In the end, I chose to pursue humanities. It’s not a field I can say I’m completely confident in, but it’s a place where bits of my interests meet. Reading is one of the hobbies I’ve had ever since I was young; and subconsciously, I’ve always enjoyed imagining and writing different scenarios and stories. And plus, history and geography used to be my favorite subjects back in grade school. Where else can you find all of these than in the field of humanities, right? And so I decided to explore my path and see where it would take me.
But what I chose for my career path isn’t the entirety of my point. Rather, this one decision was the main event that made me realize that the world runs on choices. Had I taken a chance on pursuing fashion instead, I wouldn’t be writing this essay right now. I could be pulling all-nighters trying to stitch up one dress, or I could be drawing sketches of my future collections. Or maybe I’d be realizing that it wasn’t for me after all. But if it weren’t for that decision, I wouldn’t have met the people I have right now, and I wouldn’t have learned all the things I’ve gained from studying humanities. My point is, this one small choice I made largely affected the life I have right now.
Like a domino effect, the results of our choices can also influence our surroundings as well. For example, whether you choose to compliment a person or not can make or break someone’s day. I remember doubting my work and rarely showing it to people, but there was this one time I decided to show a story that I wrote to my friend to help me figure out a good title. I wasn’t expecting any feedback, but I remember him saying that it was very well-written and that I should take up a writing course. Of course I still don’t think my talents are up to par, but that honest reaction sparked my motivation up high and made me want to work more. If that one little compliment gave me a lot of boost, what more can those little things do on a larger scale? Maybe a little nudge can actually be a large push for some people.
On a wider scale, our small decisions not only can affect another individual, but it can also trigger events that are out of our hands. A modern example can be the huge Hong Kong protests against the extradition law in 2019, which actually started with a woman cheating on a man. Long story short, the man murdered his girlfriend in foreign land (Taiwan) and went back home (Hong Kong) where the government could not do anything due to the lack of said law. Who would have thought that adultery could lead to citizens risking their lives for their rights. That the root cause of a massive protest was actually just a cheating girlfriend. Let that sink in. Now you see how big of a difference this one small event made? A personal dispute turned into a nationwide crisis.
The world is a never-ending cycle of decisions to make, whether it’s deciding where to eat for lunch or making a deal for the nation. Likewise, these outcomes are non-linear. One decision can lead to another, but that doesn’t mean it is set on one path and one path only. The choices that we make all lead to different directions; and for every decision made opens another set of choices, a new set of possibilities.
Ysabela Meets World 