Pause…Rewind…Play

You’re sitting watching a tv show or a movie, it could be anything. You’ve invested in the characters, the premise of the situation and are watching the story unfold. But then someone talks to you, you miss something, it may not be important to the plot but you aren’t sure, you pause it and let the person (maybe it’s your partner or children, or a phone call) say what they need to say. Once the chat is finished you rewind what you’re watching and then press play. Picking up where you left off, not missing anything of significance and hopefully enjoying it till the end.

We rely on the pause, rewind and play buttons on our remote, we use them without hesitation or thinking about it. They are part of our everyday TV life. Wouldn’t it be utterlty amazing if you could do this in real life. When you could pause, rewind and play as you wanted to. Here are three areas below where it could be useful.

1. Personal Life

Maybe you’ve had a humdinger of an argument with your partner and said some things you didn’t really mean, but it’s too late. Press Pause, think about what you want to say or how you really should have reacted, and then rewind to get to the start of the argument and press play. Say your new and improved point and hopefully things will not be so grrrrrr 😡!

Or you’ve had the perfect day with your loved ones, you ate good food, you had a great laugh and you want to relive it over and over. What about the time’s you’ve missed, such as your child’s first steps or first words, you press rewind and ensure you’re with them at that moment.

So many things you could do and relive or change….what would you do?

2. Work

It’s 10.00 am on a Tuesday morning, you have a meeting with a colleague to discuss and present a project you are working on which could lead to a promotion to the job you’ve always dreamed of. You’ve done your research and are ready to go. But the more your colleague talks at the start you realise, you’ve focused on the wrong thing putting your promotion in jeopardy. Wouldn’t it be magical if you could pause the conversation, rewind to your original meeting to find out what you really should be focusing on? Then once you are prepared you can press play, armed with the correct information and get on with your meeting and hopefully secure that promotion!

Work can be a source of many moments when you wish you could pause, rewind and play! I know I can think of a few times recently when this would’ve been useful!

3. Saying goodbye

One of the hardest parts of life is death. Whether it’s unexpected or expected, it’s devastatingly heartbreaking. We can’t prepare for how we will react, feel or cope in that moment. We always wished we could’ve said goodbye or said something else as being our last words. The final hug we had which we didn’t know was the final hug. We would do anything to go back and see them one last time.

If we could pause, rewind and get to a place where we could spend more time with our loved one – including pets we have lost – wouldn’t that be amazing! Imagine! Where the hug could last for ages, where we say the right thing, when you tell them you love them and maybe where we didn’t have to lose them. We always wish we could have one last moment with them. This could be it. It could be a wonderful opportunity. Saying goodbye as you would’ve wished.

Having a remote in life would be an amazing tool, it would allow us to do all of the above and so much more. We could do this over and over. It would be a great way to live life.

However, realistically it wouldn’t be. We’d be stuck in time, rewinding the same parts until we feel it’s right. We would struggle to let go, move on and say goodbye. Our life would be more past than present. We would lose sight of what’s truly significant. We would continue to age but wouldn’t move forward. We learn as we go and if we were rewinding to always fix our mistakes, then we’ll never learn. We can take away the cause of the hurt in a fight, but then we could be stuck with the same problem.

So despite how good it would be to pause, rewind and play our lives in theory, in practice we would miss out on life. We wouldn’t see things in front of us playing out as we would be too busy trying to fix or stay in the past.

Through the next week, when something happens and you wish you could rewind time and fix it, think about what you could do now, in the present to change it or make it work. Not all situations can be fixed, so it may be time to move on. We can’t rewind time or have time to pause and reflect but by pressing play on your life now, you can live it!

Have a great week, look after you and be kind to all.

Take care, love Emma xx