What If?

I caught a snippet of a programme on the history channel today where they were discussing a conspiracy theory that I have not considered before: the question of whether Adolf Hitler committed suicide in Berlin in 1945, or he escaped and lived undetected, possibly somewhere in South America. Apparently this was strongly considered in the years after the second world war because there was no body, and though, as I learnt in A-level history, it is now generally believed that Hitler did commit suicide after ordering that his body be burnt, the theory lives on.

All that leads me to the point that we humans love to debate the great 'What ifs?' of life, even when most of the time it doesn't matter and none of the time can we change what has happened. But I wonder if the greatest 'what if' question a person can ever ask themselves is: 'What if I had not existed?' By which I mean 'What difference would there be if I had not been where I was on each day of my life, and thus what difference have I made?' Indeed, what difference will I make in the future? I think these are genuinely worthwhile questions, especially if the answer, or the result of such introspection is positive.

I'm still working on that.

There's my thought for the day.