One of the interesting things about life to me is how every choice we make, no matter how seemingly innocuous can have long reaching consequences.  We don't have foresight and we don't know what the outcomes of our decisions might be.  Any action or in some cases inaction might lead to a wide array of twists and turns that you never could have predicted.

A long time ago there was a girl.  Around that same time I knew that I liked girls, but I was a completely clueless idiot when it came to them.  In spite of that I was sort of getting the inkling that this particular girl might possibly be interested in me.  But even with that idea in mind I remained a completely clueless idiot.  It came to pass at one point that an almost perfect romantic situation straight out of a movie presented itself and in my utter cluelessness I failed to act upon it.  The girl seemed to give up on me after that and I can't really say that I blame her.  After all, I was a clueless idiot.  Not very long after that non-incident she began dating another guy.  They went on to get married and had three children together and from what I can tell it's been a happily ever after situation.  It seems things worked out for the best.

But here's where I wonder sometimes what if I hadn't been a clueless idiot that night?  I have no idea if things would have worked out in the long run between us.  I don't know if we would have gotten married.  Truth be told I didn't even know her that well.  I don't know if we would have had all that much in common or if we would have even liked each other once we got to know each other better.  

But what if we had dated just long enough that she never got together with her future husband?  They would have never gotten married and never had their kids.  That feels kind of heavy to me.  There are three human beings out there that very likely never would have existed if I had been a little more with it.  I don't want to say they owe their existence to me, but my idiocy likely played a role in their being here today.  I could have very well prevented them from ever being born just by taking a different action on one night a long time ago.  Obviously I never would have known that I had blocked their entry into this world.  It wouldn't have been a conscious decision I made, but it's one of those long-reaching unintended outcomes of the decisions that you make.  Who knows how many other people do or don't exist based on things I did or didn't do?  It's kind of crazy to think about.