Sarala Life — Life in Chapters: Careers, Canines, Cabernet & Courage

Daily writing prompt

If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?

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If you could erase one event from history, what would it be?

It feels like there should be an obvious answer.

A war.
A genocide.
An act of terrorism.
A moment when humanity failed itself so spectacularly that you wonder how the world might look if it simply had not happened.

And of course, there are events I wish had never happened. There is suffering so immense that I would never try to romanticise it by saying everything happens for a reason.

But erase it?

I’m not sure I would.

Because history isn’t a collection of isolated moments. One thing changes another. Tragedy has changed laws. Injustice has created movements. Failure has forced accountability. Loss has changed the way generations think, lead and love.

And when I bring the question closer to home, it becomes even harder.

What event from my own history would I erase?

There are certainly contenders.

The professional disappointments. The friendships that ended. The decisions I would make differently now. The moments I stayed too long, trusted too much, said too little—or perhaps said too much.

There are versions of my life I sometimes imagine where certain things simply didn’t happen.

But then I have to ask: Who would I be without them?

Would I have learnt boundaries without having mine crossed?

Would I understand reinvention if everything had gone according to plan?

Would I appreciate peace if I had never known chaos?

Would I have discovered how much of my identity was wrapped up in achievement if the ladder had never broken?

Probably not.

At 40, I am becoming less interested in editing my past and much more interested in understanding it.

That’s different.

Understanding allows me to say: I wish that hadn’t happened, but it did.

It allows me to hold people accountable without allowing them to occupy permanent space in my future.

It allows me to acknowledge my own mistakes without turning them into a life sentence.

And perhaps most importantly, it allows me to stop bargaining with a life that has already happened.

There is something incredibly freeing about that.

Because maybe the goal isn’t to build a history without regret, pain or failure.

Maybe it’s to build a life where those things don’t get the final word.

So if I were handed an eraser and given the opportunity to remove one event from history?

I think I’d put it down.

Not because everything that happened was good.

Not because everyone who hurt us deserves forgiveness.

Not because suffering was necessary.

But because history—collective and personal—isn’t meant to be rewritten until it becomes beautiful.

Sometimes the beauty is in what we choose to build from what remains.

And right now, I’m far more interested in the next chapter than I am in rewriting the last one.