For as long as I can remember, the idea of a parallel universe has captivated me. How does it feel like to hear my own voice echoing from another version of Earth? To stand face to face with another version of me, one who chose a different path, who braved the same fears but conquered them, and now walks a life I often dream of?
Why is it that we always imagine, in those reflections, a brighter self, radiant with triumph, and not a shadowed one, burdened by loss?
Perhaps it’s the mystery of it all that pulls me in, the thought that somewhere, in the vast list of possibilities, another version of me exists. A version who said yes when I said no, who stayed when I walked away, who dared when I hesitated. Would I recognise this alternate self? Would he recognise me? Or would we stand as strangers, linked only by the faint echoes of choices and dreams we once shared?
And what of the worlds he inhabits? Are they utopias, shaped by decisions I was too afraid to make? Or are they haunted landscapes, painted by the brush of paths I was wise to avoid?
It’s strange how the mind paints these extremes, as though there can only be greatness or ruin, hero or cautionary tale.
But maybe it’s not about better or worse. Maybe it’s about understanding, the kind that comes when you look at yourself through an eye unclouded by the weight of your own life. Maybe, in meeting this other me, I’d find not a rival, but a mirror, not answers, but questions that finally feel worth asking.
And so, I keep writing, not to unravel the mysteries of parallel worlds, but to explore the one I’m in. Because if there’s a version of me out there who’s living the life I imagine, then maybe I can learn to be them here.
What if the parallel version of me feels the same yearning, looking back at my life as the one that seems brighter or freer? What if, in their world, my decisions look brave, my hesitations wise, and my path uniquely enviable? It’s a humbling perspective, one that reshapes how I see my own story. Perhaps we’re all someone else’s “what if.” Never content in what we have, always looking for more, more stuff, more recognition, more selfies, more likes.
I wonder what I will say to him if we could somehow meet. Stay? Don’t leave? Come back?
I wonder what that other me would have to say Would they offer advice, a warning, or a word of encouragement? Or would they simply listen, recognising in my voice the same struggles they’ve known, the same hope that keeps us moving forward? Perhaps they’d remind me of something I’ve always known but often forget. That no path is perfect, that every journey carries its own weight, its own victories, its own regrets.
And what if it’s not only one but many alternate realities are out there? A multiverse.
Will I get to choose between several versions of myself? Will they all look at me the same way? Am I unique? Am I them?
In the end, I may never find the portal and find out what lies in this parallel world, nor if it exists at all. But as I sit here in this one, I realise that the questions they inspire are as real as the air I breathe. They urge me to dream, to act, to shape my life into something that feels worthy, not to another me, but to this one. And maybe that’s enough. Maybe the pursuit of a better self doesn’t require crossing dimensions or defying the limits of physics. Maybe it’s as simple, and as profound, as choosing to live fully here and now. To be in harmony with the present moment.
In every imagined universe, one truth remains constant: I am here. I am the architect of this life, this moment. And maybe the greatest act of courage isn’t peering into the lives I didn’t live or a past I didn’t have, but pouring all my energy into the one I have, learning to love it, shape it, and trust that it is enough.
Perhaps the real beauty of parallel worlds isn’t in their existence, but in how they challenge me to embrace my own, to see it as the one story no one else can live.
And that, I think, is extraordinary.
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