If you follow me on Twitter or know me in real life, you know that my favorite TV show right now is Community. (Yes, I’m late to the game. I already know this.)

One of my favorite episodes and what I think fans and critics agree is the best episode of the show is “Remedial Chaos Theory”. In that episode, a die is rolled to determine which member of the group goes to pick up the pizza that was delivered. With each result of the die and depending on who had to leave to get the pizza, a different timeline is created as events become altered.

Eventually there is a prime timeline and “The Darkest Timeline”.

Even with all the fun aspects of this episode (plus the fact that I now have “Roxanne” by The Police stuck in my head, thanks a lot Britta), what I got most out of watching it was how just one simple decision in life can change the course of the future.

While there are many of those stories I have in my life, today I’m going to focus on a decision that I did not initiate but it would eventually map out my life.

When I was a freshman in college, I was ready to take on the world. I was going to be a chemical engineer and make lots of money. Before I left for school, I fell in deep like with a guy from back home. We went to high school together but we didn’t become friends until the summer before I left. Once I got to school, we spent a lot of time talking on AIM and on the phone getting to know each other. And I really liked him. I came home for a weekend to hang out with him and we went to a concert and the movies together and I hoped that something would come of it. However, he eventually made the decision to not further our relationship.

I will admit that I didn’t handle it so well. As an 18 year old college freshman, I was not as mature as I am now in how I reacted. Not towards him but more so in the decisions I made after that. And because of how I handled it, those decisions that I made then affected where I am today.

I don’t blame him at all for what happened. He had every right to make that decision all those years ago and looking back as well as looking to see where we are today, I do believe that for both us it was the right decision. But it interesting that one choice eventually affected so much.

What if the die had rolled a different way? What would that timeline have looked like? It would have been completely different from where I am now. I think of all the people I have met up until today and without sounding cocky, all the lives I’ve impacted. If things had gone different 13 years ago, this would not have been the case. I might have kept continuing studying engineering and created something that would have saved the world. I might have ended up with him or someone else and not had the relationships I ended up having. The world could have ended.

In all seriousness, I know that things happen for a reason. God chooses to close doors and lead you down the path that he wants you to be on. I know I’m where I’m supposed to be right now. All the experiences I’ve gone through, no matter how hard they were and sometimes how much they sucked happened to me for a reason. All the people I’ve met, all the friends I’ve made, all the emotions I’ve dealt with, they’ve happened for a reason. And I’m happy with that. It’s not the path I thought was going to be on but I know it’s the right for me.

I do wonder what happened in all those other timelines.