This morning I asked my daughter, “What if I hadn’t said you couldn’t be a nurse when you were ten, because you fainted when having your finger pricked? Would you have become a nurse sooner?”

Her answer, “I don’t know.”

Her question, “What if you hadn’t told me I was adopted all my life, how would I have reacted when I was older and you told me? I might have been angry, but knowing, it was just part of life, I didn’t think about it.”

There have been so many times I could ask myself, “What if…?”

No one can answer the question. To spend time lamenting my choice is to deny my life as it is. My choices have given me life now. The question I need to answer is not what if, but what am I going to do with my life now?

I could mourn all the choices I didn’t make. What would that get me? A sad life.

I can look for opportunities to help someone have a better life, to learn something new, to understand another part of the world I live in, to write stories to share with children and adults.

The world is full of possibilities. I have no time for “what if.” I’m busy with “now.”