Choices

I've often wondered what today would have been have I stayed back in the Philippines.  Or maybe if my parents actually decided to go to California instead of Maryland.  Oh how drastically different I picture it to be.  

 

I bet if I stayed back in the PI, the pressure of following my overachieving sister would have been a burden.  I would, knowing me now --either have tried to supersede her, or slack off to try and pull away from the comparisons.  I had lots of those back home.  I was compared to her every step of the way though we have an 11 year age difference.  I guess there is really no way for me to pull away from her shadow since she graduated salutatorian of her class --rumor has it, she was suppose to be the valedictorian but there was some controversy so she just let it go.  

 

What if we moved to the West Coast instead?  What kind of person would I be today?  Will I still hold true to heart some Filipino values?  Will be as liberal on some, and conservative on others?  Will be as politically charged?  Or will I be more laid back like that of my cousins there?  Would I be less religious?  Oh..would I still be a virgin?  Whoa...what a concept.  If I were to answer, with what I know of the West (and I'm stereotyping here), then I probably would have been long de-flowered.  Have had more boyfriends than I can imagine.  I'll probably less politically charged, unless I went to school at Berkley, or maybe UNC or UCLA.  But then again, these answers are all opposites of what I am today.  So it's probably totally skewed and unfair.  "Sorry West Coast Readers."  The fact is, I'll be a totally different person.  

 

It would just be interesting, is all, to imagine if I were to change the choices long past and see what effects it would have on today and tomorrow.  One thing we ought to remember:  however small or big our decisions may be, it will always affect something in our future.  Isn't there a Chinese proverb that said something like...the flap of a butterfly's wing in Asia caused the tidal wave in Hawaii?  Or something to that effect.  But you see the point.  All are connected together.