Think about the worst decision you’ve ever made — the one thing you know you should have done differently.
“If only someone could’ve warned me,” you might think. “If I had just known, everything would be different today.”
I’ve thought things similar to that. After things end in ways that make me unhappy, I tend to go back and find the one moment — and there usually is one moment — when I made a decision or took an action that caused what I’m unhappy about.
I’m prone to thinking how different things could be if I had a time machine to go back to that moment. But I wonder whether that’s true.
I found out this evening that a young woman who I casually know has gotten engaged. She hasn’t been dating the guy very long — and everyone who knows her seems to have very negative impressions of the way he treats her.
As she stood there this evening showing me her ring, I knew better than to express my misgivings. She wouldn’t listen — just as I suspect I wouldn’t have listened if someone had warned me before my own major mistakes.

Modern life doesn’t have to be as complicated as we try to make it
For governance, ‘one size fits all’ is a bad idea — even if the ‘one size’ is your version of freedom
Sharing ridiculous things we enjoy is a special part of love
How many warnings can life give us when something’s gone wrong?
HUMOR: The senator chooses whether to live in heaven or hell
Tribal hatreds around me mean detour on road to personal peace
Could free cities turn reservations from abject poverty to prosperity?
Trust and spontaneous order don’t require heavy hand of the state