An old man notices something is off.

The room at the back of the appliance store confuses him…. it's filled with gadgets and devices from forty years ago.

He steps inside. 

But the air is cooler, and the weather through the window is different.

The world outside is as it was forty years ago.

Shaken, he asks the store owner what's going on.

"The Gateway of Years," the owner says. 

Same store … but its four decades back.

The owner warns him not to get too excited.

Yes, you can walk into the past, but you can't change it.  Whatever you do back there is already accounted for in the present.

"All you can do is forgive, atone, or rediscover."

But the old man doesn't listen.

His wife died forty years ago when their apartment collapsed while he was at work. He believes he can change this!

He walks through the door.

But the town they used to live in is hundreds of miles away, and the past throws everything at him to stop his journey: bad weather, broken lines, robbery, injury, missed connections. Every nightmare imaginable.

But the old man persists.

Until he reaches his hometown.

He finds the apartment!

But he's a day late.

It's in fresh rubble.

He relives his nightmare all over again.

Then someone approaches.

A rescue worker.

She tells him she sat with a young woman she found in the debris. She spoke with her before she passed. The old man knows instantly. It was his wife!

The rescuer shares her last words:  “While her life was cut short, the time she spent with her husband was the happiest she had ever known.”

The old man sobs.

He had never received that message. 

Not in any version of his life.

And standing in the rubble, he finally understands what the store owner meant:

Nothing can change the past. 

The only thing you can ever do with it is forgive, atone, and rediscover.

That is all.

But that is enough.

Last week, I wrote about how I’d love to have a ‘conversation with myself’.

Lessons, mistakes, areas of where I could have done things differently.

But I remembered this story from Ted Chiange. If you’re reading this, you’re likely

a) A professional

b) Who beats themselves up

c) For a mistake, lost opportunity, or regret in the past.

So take this story to heart:

^{*Chiang, Ted. Exhalation: Stories. First edition, Alfred A. Knopf, 2019}

But…

For those interested, all my lessons, mistakes, areas of where I could have done things differently in sales can all be found here.

Our latest book is now available!