Alternate Universes

There is, in the literary field of science fiction, a strain based on a plot device usually termed Alternate Universe, or Alternate History.
Harry Turtledove is probably the best known proponent, with interesting "what-if" plots based on events such as people coming from the future to supply the Confederate armies with M-16s during the American civil war.
What fun.
I like the term Speculative Fiction, which some sci-fi afficianados advocate to replace the rather restrictive term, Science Fiction. It isn't alway about science, after all.
If we apply the speculative aspect to our own lives, for instance, science is usually the last area we consider.
What if...?
Look at any hugely successful person.
Okay, look at Jack Nicholson, to take a random example.
What if Jack had botched his role in the movie Easy Rider so badly that he could never have landed another acting role again? After all, his acting style is rather idiosyncratic. It could easily have been passed off as too eccentric, or too limiting, or just too plain weird.
Imagine The Shining, starring Harrison Ford in the lead role. Hmmm. Not the same movie at all.
Or what if a well-meaning uncle had said, "Jack, forget about all that talk about becoming a movie star. You know how few people actually make it in that business? Why don't you come into the hardware store business with me. There's good, dependable income in this line of work and I'll make you a 20% partner right off the bat!"
Wouldn't Nicholson have made an awesome hardware store manager?
How many famously successful people would be able (and willing) to tell us of a turning point in their lives - or even more than one turning point - where they made a decision that made all the difference? If they had decided otherwise, they would have remained in obscurity like the rest of us poor shmucks?
They might have lived in an Alternate Universe in which they never amounted to much, driving the daily commute to and from their trivial jobs, coming home for a little beer and a little TV time every evening, puttering around with their garage hobbies, maybe getting out once a week to go bowling, spending way too much time at their computers writing in their blogs...
Ouch.
One tends to think of his current reality as the main trunk, so to speak, of the possible chains-of-events his life could have taken. All the other "paths not taken," (I love the poetry of Robert Frost) could be seen as offshoots.
But is it more accurate - if you are not hugely successful, but might have been - to say that your current reality is one of the offshoots of the fabulous life you could have lived?
Aren't we all living in an alternate universe of the life we fantasize about?
"I could have been a contender."
Hell, I could have been The Man!
It's been said that in our Golden Years, we have regrets not about the things we did, but about the things we didn't do.
Does virtually everybody over the age of forty or fifty look back on missed opportunities?
Is there anybody that says, "Nope, I would pretty much have ended up with the short straw no matter what I would have tried, no matter how hard I worked."?
What if they had been able to shed that attitude? Then what?
What about you? What would your life have been like if you hadn't taken the alternative route, the path of least or lesser resistance, the "blind alley"?
Does it hurt to think about it?
It hurts me.
I am definitely one of those who feels that I could have been, would have been, should have been famous in my area.
Ever heard of Kenny G?
In an alternate universe there is a guy who eclipsed poor Kenny so badly that he didn't become a household name. Kenny might have been playing in the backup band for the Blues Brothers. Instead, in this alternate universe, my identical twin of the same name would have a handful of platinum records by now.
Think this is all just chest-beating? That I'm fooling myself into thinking that "I could have been a contender"?
What I'm saying is that virtually anybody could have achieved The Dream with enough hard work and persistence.
If you don't buy that, read the book, The Magic of Thinking Big, by David Schwartz.
If you're young enough not to regret the missed opportunities of the past, read it twenty times.
After reading that book you'll be less skeptical about what the average joe is capable of.
Also, if you don't buy this philosophy, try this not-so-simple experiment.
Talk to ten people who have made it BIG in their fields. Ask them if they buy this idea.
At least nine of them will say to you, "It's not too late to become the person you were meant to be. Start now."