As I write this, it’s October 11th… so, happy Life Is Strange day!
In case you don’t know about it, Life Is Strange is a story-based video game in which we (the players) assume the role of the main protagonist, Max Caulfield. In most situations throughout the game, we are presented with two choices. Each decision leads to a completely different outcome and can significantly influence how the rest of the story unfolds.
In episode one of the game, we learn that Max is a young girl who has returned to her hometown of Arcadia Bay, Oregon to complete her final year of high school. A few weeks into the beginning of classes, Max goes to use the restroom, where she witnesses a fight break out between one of the antagonists, Nathan Prescott, and the other protagonist, Chloe Price. The fight escalates to the point where the antagonist shoots Chloe, killing her on the spot. This incident causes Max to accidentally travel back in time, discovering that she has the ability to rewind time.
Upon discovering her newfound ability, Max goes back to the bathroom, hoping to save Chloe. Because she knows what is going to happen that time, she pulls the fire alarm before Nathan has the chance to end Chloe’s life, which completely changes the course of the game, as Chloe’s “destiny” is to die. Following this, Max encounters various situations involving both major and minor choices, where we must decide the course we want to take in the story. After the choices are made, we have the option to rewind back in time and see the outcome of the alternative choice(s). We can either rewind once more to select the option that gives us the most desired outcome or stick with the choice we just made. Personally, I prefer to see the outcomes of all the choices before deciding which option to pursue, based on where I want the story to go from there.
To me, playing this game reinforced the importance of making choices. We all make choices in our everyday lives, some more than others. All of these choices, whether major or minor, can profoundly impact the course of our lives and the world around us. The world is deeply interconnected, and even the “smallest” choices we make can have unforeseen influences on what follows. Some choices only affect the time in which we make them. Sometimes, we don’t even know which choices will end up having a life-changing impact. Our choices have a greater effect than we realize, and unlike Life Is Strange, there is no rewind button to change our decisions, no matter how much we may regret them or wish to change them desperately after they have been made.
I could make a decision right now that might have significant consequences for the future course of my life, but I just don’t realize it yet. Maybe if I make a certain choice differently than the one I chose years ago, a significant part of my life would change, either positively or negatively. It’s important that we’re mindful of each choice we make because once we make them, there is no going back.
With all of this said, it’s just as important to let go of any regrets we have regarding the choices we made in the past. Thinking about the “what ifs” (i.e., what could’ve gone differently if we had made a different choice) will constantly prove detrimental and will only consume us if we let it. Even if we had the ability to rewind time and choose another decision, it doesn’t necessarily mean that choice would be better for us than the one we did make. Maybe the choice we made has more favorable outcomes than the choice we didn’t make, and we just don’t know that it does.
Sometimes we make a “bad” decision, but with it comes with opportunities that we wouldn’t have encountered otherwise. To some degree, we should appreciate the “bad” choices we make just as much as we appreciate the “good” ones. I use “bad” and “good” lightly because what is bad and what is good is subjective, and we are the only ones who give meaning to the choices we make. Often, how we live and move forward with our choices is more important than the choices we actually make. And sometimes, those choices aren’t “good” or “bad” choices – they’re just our choices.