Life in Progress

Maybe in another life, I would not be a lawyer. There is a good part of my work that I have enjoyed very much but there is also the dreary and routine part that I have to put up with. So yes if there were a parallel universe, please take me there. I know there is no perfect package for life, I do reckon with the choices I have made and I know that all packages have certain pitfalls . But that does not mean I cannot imagine what if there were another life, what would I like it to be and what kind of choices  could I have made. The truth is I probably would have made the same mistakes and similar irrational decisions even if I had the benefits of the hindsight I now possess. If I had not been impulsive and the kind of person who does not plan and see where life takes her, I might have become cynical and too pragmatic and I would not be the person I am now.

An old school friend is happy to find that I am a free thinker as she is one. Many people she and I know are either Christians or Taoists or embrace some religious faith. But I do believe in rebirths and evolution. I also believe that there are many different life packages as such there could be various permutations of us depending on the circumstances we have landed ourselves in.

Maybe in Another Life written by Taylor Jenkins Reid is a fiction that depicts how different consequences follow when the protagonist makes a different decision at a certain point of her life. At the age of twenty-nine, Hannah Marie Martin still has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She has lived and held countless jobs in six different cities. She decides to go back to her roots in Los Angeles after having  a disastrous relationship with a  man who is  already married.  To celebrate her first night back, her best friend, Gabby takes her out to a bar where she bumps into her high school boyfriend, Ethan whom she still has feelings for. The story is about what happens if she goes home with Gabby and what happens if she does not go home with Gabby. Maybe in Another Life is about how Hannah’s decision can result in different stories  in two parallel universes. The point is, a different decision brings about a different outcome, it  thus prompts the questions  :  Is much of our life determined by chance ? Is there only one soul-mate?

One of the characters in the novel says,

‘ And I was reading about different theories about the universe. I was really taken with this one theory that states that everything that is possible happens. That means that when you flip a quarter, it doesn’t come down heads or tails. It comes up heads and tails. Every time you flip a coin and it comes up heads, you are merely in the universe where the coin came up heads. There is another version of you out there, created the second the quarter flipped, who saw it come up tails. This is happening every second of every day. The world is splitting further and further into an infinite number of parallel universes where everything that could happen is happening .This is completely plausible, by the way. It is a legitimate interpretation of quantum mechanics. It’s entirely possible that every time we make a decision, there is a version of us out there somewhere who made a different choice. An infinite number of versions of ourselves are living out the consequences of every single possibility in our lives. What I’m gettingin at here is that I know there may be universes out there where I made different choices that led me shomewhere else, led me to someone else. “

Vevey  December 2012 

Maybe in Another Life reminds me of The Versions of Us where its author, Laura Barnett gave three possible outcome to the central characters.click  In concurrent storylines, Taylor Jenkins Reid explores the concepts of fate and chance and offers two alternate realities. I have a penchant for books that talk about choices and destiny and I do not think that what is meant to be meant to be. I am naturally drawn to a fiction that is written based on the concept of love, chance and fate and how a single decision can lead to different outcome that not only affects the protagonist but also the characters around her. I have always believed that everything is inter-related as the world is connected somehow.