Why asking “What If” can be bad for you

This week on Geek Devotions, Celeste takes a look at the concept of “what if” stories. We are a big fan of alternate timeline series like DC’s Elseworlds and Amazon’s “The Man In the High Castle.” But what happens when we ourselves dwell on the alternate options that we could have made in our own lives?

Today we are taking a broader subject, the subject of else worlds. Elseworlds for those who don’t know are stories in the DC Universe that make the established Cannon of a character, and they change things up just a bit, and we see how things play out. Example what if Clark Kent landed in Gotham and was raised by the Waines?  Marvel has them, and they call them What If’s, and then there is an Author by the name of Harry Turtle Dove who writes fiction books about alternate history. My favorite of his is the one that goes… What if Hitler/ the Nazi’s had won? What would the world look like today? Similar story to Man in the Highcastle.

Stories like this are fun to read, think about, and even have stories about. I know that Dallas is a big fan of the Batman Elseworlds in particular. We as humans can fall into the trap of thinking this way as well. We can become trapped in the what if’s. What if I had taken this job? What if I had gone to this event. If I had not made this choice, I would not be having to deal with the repercussions of this choice, and I would be happier. This type of focus, concentration can be harmful to you. If you take the worry of what might have happened or if you take the guilt of “I should have made a better choice” you can fall into the trap of that is all you focus on, and you lose sight of what God is wanting to say to you. You can become so focused on the negative things or what if’s that you really stop living your life.

In Romans 1:21 it says ” Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Now, this verse is talking about an entirely different type of vain imagination, it is talking about people who had the truth, and decided that they did not need God to be their God, that they did not want to live a life or righteousness. At the same time, this is a fitting scripture for what we are talking about. If we focus so much on the things that could have been, as said before we lose sight of what God has for us… and when we lose view of what God has for us that is when we begin to flounder and do things we might not do otherwise.

So don’t let the things you are regretting, the items you wish you could change, control your thoughts. Do not make the items from the past control your future. As a wise monkey once said the past is in the past, you can either run from it or learn from it. Choose to Learn from the past, rather than to imagine the Elseworlds.

Question of the Week: what classic story would you like to see redone differently? And what would your twist be?