Ctrl+Z

Gun’s Quote-of-the-Week:

“Oops, I did it again…”
-Brittany Spears

My favorite keystroke combination on my computer is Ctrl+Z. Easily the thing I use the most every day and likely will be used half a dozen times tonight while writing this Gun’s Quote.

For those not immediately aware, Ctrl+Z is the keystroke for “Undo.” Hit it once while typing a Word document, and whatever it is you just did disappears. Type the wrong number in Excel, Ctrl+Z goes back to whatever you had before you screwed up your formula. Accidentally delete the wrong file, Ctrl+Z resurrects it from the Recycle Bin. When I’m programming or doing graphics at work, Ctrl+Z is my lifeline to undo whatever dumb thing I did in the first place.

This week, I found myself playing the role of a philosopher and pondering how something so ubiquitous on my computer has no equal in my life. In other words, I can undo a mistake I make on a computer, but no such reversal exists in life itself.

If I’m making dinner and I burn something, it’s burned. At that point, I’m ordering pizza.

If I Tweet something that is in error one way or another and somebody reads it, they can’t unread it.

If I insult or humiliate somebody, our relationship is tarnished, no matter how much I apologize.

Divorce doesn’t undo marriage; it destroys families. Abortion doesn’t undo pregnancy; it murders a child. Bankruptcy doesn’t undo debt; it leaves people who worked hard unpaid. I can think of literally zero examples in life of a true “Undo” function whereby one can go back in time and erase something that happened leaving no recollection or consequence for those impacted by the decision. Everything that you and I do has a lasting consequence, no matter how miniscule or earth-shattering.

Why is that?

I found myself asking the question this week after pondering my own set of mis-steps that I’ve recently had. No matter what, I can’t undo the past. I want to, I wish I could, but I don’t posses that power. That sucks!

Then, an analogy of an Oak tree came to mind. Assuming that you have good dirt and it gets regularly watered, planting an acorn is going to produce an Oak tree. Once that acorn sprouts, there is no going back. It will never be an acorn again. Once that tree is 20 feet tall, it will never be 10 feet tall again, unless somebody starts to cut it down. If somebody starts to cut it down, those same branches will never grow back.

How many times do we wish we could start over again? How many times do we wish we could “Undo” something? Why waste my time and energy contemplating that? It will never happen, just like an Oak tree will never be an acorn again. Yet, I do it all the time.

So, again, why doesn’t life have an Undo keystroke? Why can’t I Ctrl+Z my way out of some pickle I’ve found myself in?

I came up with two thoughts. I don’t know if they’re any good or not, but I’ll throw them out there.

The first is that it forces us to think through what we do. We are “incentivized” (for lack of a better term) to not screw up because we know that whatever decision we make is permanent. If we could undo every decision, we would certainly be much looser about our decision-making. Maybe we would actually end up making poorer decisions because we would stop thinking about them as hard in the first place.

The second is that it forces us to grow. We can’t erase our mistakes, but we can learn from them. We can use our new-found wisdom to help others avoid the same pitfalls. The flaws and fallacies in life prune and shape us in to being who we are. If we hurt somebody, we learn to be more empathetic for the next person we meet. If we fail a test, we study harder for the next one. We can’t start over again; we will never be able to go back to that acorn, but we can learn from our scars to grow taller.

I still wish I could undo parts of life, but I get why I’m not designed that way. Life’s experiences, good or bad, would have no meaning if we could change them at-will. I treasure the good experiences just as much as I loathe the poor ones. I can help somebody in my life by telling them about those bad experiences. If I erased them, that opportunity would be lost. In a way, I would be hurting others by selfishly choosing to help myself. That doesn’t sound too fair.

...and that’s why it’s a Gun’s Quote!!