“Did you ever wonder what life would have been like if you’d said yes?” said Ridcully.
“No.”
“I suppose we’d have settled down, had children, grandchildren, that sort of thing…”
“What about the fire?” she said.
“What fire?”
“Swept through our house just after we were married. Killed us both.”
“What fire? I don’t know anything about any fire!”
Granny turned around.
“Of course not! It didn’t happen. But the point is, it might have happened. You can’t say ‘if this didn’t happen then that would have happened’ because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say ‘if only I’d..’ because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it. So I don’t.”
Haha. This is exactly the kind of mindset I am trying to develop. I have spent a lot of my past overanalysing things and it has almost never helped me. All I got was tension, loss of hair and dark circles. I am going through the book “The Power if Letting Go” and it is fantastic.
Having read every Discworld novel and without looking it up, that sounds right. As I recall Mistress Weatherwax had been seeing alternate timelines as part of a side effect of the Elve's world intersecting the reality of the Disc, and she's married to Ridcully in some of them, as they apparently were involved in their youth. She does later note to Ridcully that, from what she saw, their alternate selves that had married appeared happy.
In my personal opinion it is one of the worst Discworld books, which still makes it pretty good mind you.
“No.”
“I suppose we’d have settled down, had children, grandchildren, that sort of thing…”
“What about the fire?” she said.
“What fire?”
“Swept through our house just after we were married. Killed us both.”
“What fire? I don’t know anything about any fire!”
Granny turned around.
“Of course not! It didn’t happen. But the point is, it might have happened. You can’t say ‘if this didn’t happen then that would have happened’ because you don’t know everything that might have happened. You might think something’d be good, but for all you know it could have turned out horrible. You can’t say ‘if only I’d..’ because you could be wishing for anything. The point is, you’ll never know. You’ve gone past. So there’s no use thinking about it. So I don’t.”