The timeline is malleable

Humans have always been obsessed with the concept of alternative timelines. We all want to know the future before it occurs and an enormous number of individuals would be willing to pay any amount to go back in time and fixed things they messed up or missed up. A considerable amount of Books, Seasons and Movies are based on these ideas. "The Flash", "In Time", "X-men" and many more revolve around these stories. Thats what we hear very often, even in everyday life, I wish I could find out whats awaiting ahead... If I could only go back... If only i knew back then what i know now... and follows a course of action thereafter, Sighs!

Is it really possible to time travel, learn the knowledge from future and apply it to present or re-live the moments that are gone and fix what we broke, heal what we injured? Will we actually do what we desperately think we would do have we got the opportunity? Would we be in action upon the knowledge, facts and figures once we had them? You would say: of course, but the answer is almost always going to be proven wrong. But why?

Why is it that we repeat the same mistakes? Why it is that we don't learn from our own mistakes, let alone learn from the experiences of others? “It's said that a wise person learns from his mistakes. A wiser one learns from others' mistakes. But the wisest person of all learns from others's successes.” John C. Maxwell writes in his book Leadership Gold: Lessons I've Learned from a Lifetime of Leading. To understand this, we need to take a step back and think about What is a timeline? A simple definition might be, a series of events occurred/took place in a defined period of time or a series of actions taken in a defined period of time. Both definitions looks alike or at least leads to a same conclusion, the elapsed time came to pass. However, there is subtle difference in how we say it and a huge impact on us based on how we perceive it.

Time is money, a lot of folks say that. In an essence, time is far more precious and priceless to compare it with any material or tangible item. Time is life, which may be the reason why it is called lifetime. Life is a series of choice, every single choice we make tends to open a pandora box of choices to choose from and thats what makes a lifetime or timeline of our lives. For instance, you join a gym or not, if you did, there are two possibilities, you either discipline yourself and keep on going or start missing out days, both of the choices further leads to conclusions whether you stay healthy or you get sick etc. It's like a gigantic flow chart where every decision we make matters.

This is not to deny that certain events are not the direct consequences of our choices, definitely natural events and out of control circumstances are meshed up and they influence the choices we make. But the truth is, still we do have choices amidst all. The fact is, there is a circle of influence and a circle of concern and many people have it way apart. They are the very pessimist people who complain and wish for time travel the most. They have got past time activities or hobbies that has very little or no benefit, yet you will find them complaining that they are too busy to think about anything beyond daily routine which is often not very productive either.

Do we really need to time travel? What about the present? Many individuals tend to worry so much about the future that they forget to live the present. The focus (hence the blessing of getting more done in less time) from our lives has already been lifted, so much so that the operating systems in the mobile phones provide you the insights of your screen time, yet they know you are not gonna take any measurable action upon that knowledge, similar to the cigarette industry.

Do we really need to time travel? Do we have the knowledge of the past and the future already? The final revelation of Allah, Al-Quran, is almost all talking about past and future. Since Islam is upon the nature and the creator of us and nature, the Almighty Allah knows more than we know about our quests, he has already opened up the timeline in front of us from dawn to dusk. How would the two groups behave in the afterlife, how will there condition be and even the exact conversation they will be having is known to us. Yet, how many of us take heed from it and take actions in present moment?

The bitter truth is, timeline is nothing but every moment choices we make but no one wants to take the burden of responsibility and looks for ways to blame other than himself. Only the ones who take charge and accepts that they are susceptible to mistakes and seek forgiveness while keep taking quick and right actions and decisions are the ones who never want to or need to travel the time back or forth.