Three years before my father’s death we had a curious conversation. Dad reminisced how he had suffered many hardships: he spent his teen years living near Berlin during WW II; served in the Korean War; had a thirty-four-year career in the US Army; and was the primary caregiver for my mom’s lengthy painful illness and death. He had serious back surgery with only partial recovery. Yet here he was one week away from his 84th birthday.

While discussing plans for his birthday celebration he commented that since he knows now how things turned out he would not mind going back to being 18 years old and living his life all over, just like in the George Burns movie, 18 Again!

I, on the other hand, would not go back a single day.

Knowing what I have survived—the heartbreaking losses—the deaths of a husband and a son, my own health issues, the years of study to complete my education in order to support my daughter and myself, never do I ever want to relive that agony and struggle again, even though it all has finally brought me to the happiest time of my life.

If we knew how our lives would turn out, could we let go of the useless worry that robs us of enjoying life as we live it? Very much in line with the popular saying attributed to Robert Schuller, “What would you attempt to do if you could not fail?”

Ultimately, life will unfold as it will. As a wise friend once advised me, “We cannot pre-write our lives,” so how much better to “relax and just live it,” and to gain this insight as early as possible!

As Abe Lincoln once said, “The best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.”