What Might Not Have Been

"Every man has had one horrible adventure: as a hidden untimely birth he had not been, as infants that never see the light. Men spoke much in my boyhood of restricted or ruined men of genius and it was common to say that many a man was a Great-Might-Have-Been. To me it is a more solid and startling fact that any man in the street is a Great Might-Not-Have-Been." G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy.

Chesterton goes on to liken the entire cosmos to the salvaged goods from Robinson Crusoe's wreck: "The trees and the planets seemed like things saved from the wreck." As I read this today I looked at the single plant in my apartment, that is still in recovery after an unfortunate encounter with the freezing cold and suddenly I was amazed by the possibility of its recovery. For a moment, it seemed the poor thing was on an epic journey for survival.

Everything in the world today has survived. But most of the time, we forget to marvel at all there is, and only lament what was lost. We have so much, everything becomes worthless;. After all, it is all so easily replaced. A job today seems worth much more than it might have five years ago, because if you lose it, your chances of finding a new one are not as good. But we should always treasure what we have as though it could disappear tomorrow; we should treat everything as a blessing since the very fact that we are alive is such a wonderful gift and an amazing reality.

I am the first to be guilty of wondering what might have been. As my departure from Korea draws near, I often wish for it to come faster out of excitement for what comes next. Yet I know that I am here now, and will be for three more months and when the lament of what could be rises, I know I should instead contemplate what might not have been. What might I not have seen, whom might I not have met, what I might not have learned. I should be amazed at where I am, for it might not have been.