being erica… or is it being me?

I love ABC iView. Doubly so since my ISP gives it to me quota free.

 

I hardly turn the TV on these days. Too depressing, too mind-numbing. Many more interesting things happening online, on demand.

 

So on a free and lazy Saturday I had a swim in the iView pool and discovered Being Erica, a show I swear is based on me: a 30-something, relatively attractive single childless female in an unfulfilling job, regretting the decisions made along her life path that have lead her to this point.

 

Erica meets Dr Tom, a therapist who is able to send her back in time to relive her regrets so she can do them differently.

 

I’m hoping the message that comes from this is that even if you could live your life again and change your regrettable moments, it will make no difference – things happened how they were meant to happen for a reason. That’s what I live by anyway, to keep myself sane; believing anything else will make me lose the plot.

 

I’m where I am, because I’m meant to be.

 

As Dr Tom says in episode one:

“You are where you need to be right now. And when you’re finished doing whatever it is that you’re meant to be doing, then you move on.”

 

 

At a couple of points in the first two episodes, I found myself getting teary – a sure sign it hits close to home.

 

It made me think: If I could go back and change things about my life, would I?

 

Knowing what I know now, would I waste 11 years in a relationship that goes nowhere? Or would I put the love aside and start years earlier on working on a relationship that gave me children, and a husband, and a pretty house in the ‘burbs?

 

Would I stick with my first love – film, and try harder to make a career out of it?

 

Would I have travelled more when I was younger – independently, experiencing more of life by experiencing me, alone, amongst it?

 

They are my major regrets. And the choices and decisions I’ve made regarding them have lead me to be here, at this point in time, thinking the way I do, living like this, doing this.

 

It’s a tough call. I don’t know how productive it is to live in ‘what if’ land, though thousands, including me, travel there often.

 

It’s a great show if you happen to catch it. Dr Tom’s character is fond of quotes to explain things; here’s a few of the gems that resonated with me from the first episode:

 

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”

-- Albert Einstein       

 

 

“Pressure makes diamonds”

-- General Patton       

 

 

“The life which is unexamined is not worth living”

-- Plato