If you haven't seen Hot Tub Time Machine yet, do yourself a favor and head to the nearest Red Box. Even though the premise of a time traveling hot tub may seem kinda dumb this movie is heavy on the laughs. When three old friends (and a twenty year old nephew) find that their adult lives don't live up to their expectations, they take a road trip to the one place that never let them down, Kodiak Valley. It doesn't take long for them to realize that the past twenty years were not kind to the place they loved so much. The only thing the once popular ski resort still has going for it is the in room hot tub. The four guys break out the alcohol and jump in. The next morning they wake up and realize they've traveled back in time twenty years. Although they try to do the exact same things they did way back when, things don't work out that way. When they finally make it back to the present their lives have all changed for the better.
I'm no different than anyone else. I absolutely have things in my life that I wish I could change. There are decisions that I've made that didn't turn out the way I planned. I have at one time or another daydreamed about going back in time and fixing my mistakes. In theory this is a great idea. We could take a mulligan on that time we broke up with Mr. Right. We'd have a do over that would allow us to not say the harsh words too our loved one. Heck, we could even go back and use our knowledge of history to make ourselves rich.
But what kind of an effect would changing these things have on the rest on our lives? What if going back and changing something about high school caused me not to have my best friend in the present? Would it be worth it? No freaking way! Changing the smallest thing could potentially set off a chain of events that changed everything. Good and bad. It's called the butterfly effect. And my friends and family are just too amazing to risk it.
In the movies, time travel seems like a great thing. They go back, change a few things here and there, and return to the present. There they find a hot wife, a huge house, and a ton of money. But what did they learn? I don’t' know about you but for every single mistake I made, I learned something. It taught me something about the people I let in, about myself, and about life. Those are lessons that are much more valuable than knowing the upcoming lotto numbers.
So yeah, on one hand having a hot tub time machine would be great. But I've learned to live my life with no regrets. I'm not perfect but neither are you. I take the good with the bad and because of the great support system I have in place, I don't need that time machine. I'm just fine with the way things are. Are you?
