findinG ordeR iN chaOS

Does the ‘what if?’ question cross your mind every now and then. What if I had studied harder… what if I had summoned the courage to propose to that girl… what if I had not missed the train for my first interview… what if I had picked up the phone and dialed my sister’s number all those years ago…

I saw a movie called ‘Sliding Doors’ this weekend… it had Gwyneth Paltrow starring in it (Which is besides the point but she is one of the most elegant women in the industry and I wished to mention her here :O) ). Anyway, this movie traces two paths which the heroine’s life could have taken: the first had the protagonist take a subway train and other is the one where the doors slide shut and she misses it. One very simple action: but something that could change the very course of life.

Do you feel that your life would have taken a different path if you would have taken one different decision at some point of time? Well, here is one ‘what if’ question from my side. What if there actually are worlds where the consequences of your different decisions exist.

And, what if it was not just in your imagination? MWI, or many world interpretations, is a branch of quantum physics. It says that there are a very large, perhaps infinite, number of universes and that everything that could possibly happen, or could possibly have happened, in our universe (but doesn't) does happen in some other universe(s). There are parallel yous and mes somehow existing in the same space and time that we live in but normally not seen or sensed by us. In these universes, choices and decisions are being made at the very instant you are choosing and deciding. Only the outcomes are different, leading to different but similar worlds. If a universe can be imagined, it exists.

David Deutsch, a research fellow at the Department of Astrophysics, Oxford, and a professor at the University of Texas, tells us: I think it's safe to say that there are a very large, probably infinite, number of these universes. Many of them are very different from ours, but some of them differ only in some minute detail like the position of a book on a table, and are identical in every other respect.

So the very act of keeping a book in a certain way might be a reason of a totally different world – probably for you or for someone else. Say your brother, who is a confused soul, is looking for a path in life. He sees the photography book you kept facing up (and not facing down) and realizes his life’s purpose. He was a lost person and would probably have lived off you had he not realized his vision. Now you can find other uses for the time, energy and resources that you might have spend on him, trying to show him light. So one small action, and it can change so many lives in totality.

When I was a teenager, I read a book called ‘One’ by Richard Bach. It did not make that much sense to me then, but it did leave a deep impression. It had exploited the same idea where the protagonist and his wife end up visiting the different worlds that represented their lives, had they taken some different decisions / actions at some point in time. He wonders in the novel:

"I gave my life to become the person I am right now. Was it worth it?"

I wish I could travel to these many-worlds and see the different courses my life would have taken had I studied harder, or had I not broken the trust of a friend by telling my best friend what this girl had confided in me in grade nine, or if I had been there for my parents and brother more when they needed me and not being wrapped up in my own self-centered world.

I don’t know if the parallel worlds, or many worlds or whatever you might call them actually exist, but I know for sure that contemplating how much impact simple decisions or actions can make in life might force us to think and act more responsibly. Some things might not be in our hands, like Gwyneth Paltrow missing that train in that movie, though they end up shaping your life too; the real question is about the things that you do control.

When I was a kid, my father (who is an idealist and greatly into Indian mythology and values, again not relevant here but worth a mention) told me a story about Chanakya. A guru (teacher) in his gurukul(school) saw his hand and told him that he didn’t have a good fate line. He asked the sage, where the line was supposed to be. As he was being shown the line, Chanakya pulled out his dragger and carved the line on his hand saying, “I make my own fate.”

As I mentioned earlier, there are surely things that are not in your control, like you meeting an accident or missing an exam because the train got derailed etc., but what you do after that is what makes or breaks you. YOU are the master of your destiny. YOU and only YOU are responsible for what your life turns out to be. It is very easy to convince yourself that you did not have the right opportunities, upbringing or company. I totally pity people who say that their stars are currently not in place or their guruji has asked them to wait for a while or worst of all – it is their destiny. People care about what the society would say or their friends would say and hence never gather up the courage to take things in their hand and work towards their happiness. I would say – THAT IS YOUR DESTINY. That is all GEETA has been preaching for centuries and what we need to understand – “Karmanye vadhika raste, ma phaleshu kadachana!” In layman’s terms it means that do your duty and take action without worrying about the outcomes or the results.

"Whether You Think You Can or Can't, You're Right"--Henry Ford

So what are your 'What ifs'...