do you ever wish you could reserve the right to a restart at any stage in life? like if you make the choices that lead you down a path that turns stranger than fiction, that you can hit a restart button and start over back in time in case you ever needed it?

i love the idea of going backwards in time to become Past You but taking your advanced knowledge with you. like traveling back in time but only packing your brain.

when i was a kid i was always obsessed with the fantasy of going backwards in time, but having the knowledge and wisdom i had in the future. mostly, i would make a killing on the stock market because i'd been so careful to remember which companies were strong, so in private fervor, i would memorize company information and symbols in case i ever woke up to find myself in the past. i think the obsession with memorizing statistics reached its apex when i started memorizing sports trivia in case i needed to supplement my restart 8 year-old income with sports betting as well. i even had a plan worked out, of how i would impress a close family relative with my seeming psychic knowledge of outcomes, so they would go in on placing bets for me. then if i invested the winnings well, by the time i was 20, i would be...a megamillionaire. i think the expansion and practice of this fantasy went on for years, but after a while, i looked around at my life, my head swimming with numbers, symbols and logos, and i realized i was packing for a trip to a place that...well...doesn't even exist.

so i gave up my little hobby.

but usually, if no one's watching, i restart video games if things aren't boding well. if no one is around to gloat, why lose if you don't have to. i'm not ashamed.