What decisions would you alter from your past?

The appearance of Michael J Fox on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury with Coldplay was a reminder of the need to savour the moments that we have.

For those who don’t know, Michael J Fox has had a successful career in film and television, most notably for his performance as Marty McFly in the Back to the Future movies. He has since revealed his battle with Parkinson’s disease which has had an increasingly debilitating effect.

In the original movie, teenager Marty McFly travels in time from 1985 to 1955 and meets his parents when they were at High School. The difference in fashion, attitudes and culture in just three decades made for good entertainment.  Today it is now longer since the film was released than the time travel that Marty experienced, nearly a decade longer! As with most time travelling fantasies, the lesson learned is that a change in the timeline will likely lead to different outcomes.

Aporia is yet another film on the topic, but rather than travel back, time is bent to change the past. Malcolm’s sudden death as a result of a drunk driver leaves Sophie widowed and struggling to make ends meet, their daughter Riley is becoming increasingly disinterested in school or friends. Malcolm’s friend seems to have done the impossible in his spare room and invented a working Time Machine. Sophie (despite having seen Back to the Future!) decides to interrupt the time continuum with the hope of preventing the fatal accident.

I am sorry to say that my pedantic self took over as events unfold, I immediately thought, why don’t you now take out a decent level of life assurance! This is your warning, you have seen how difficult life can be when tragedy strikes and a lack of funds merely compounds the difficulty. Whist money does not compensate for the loss of a loved one, it certainly helps survivors to cope and continue.

No, it’s not terribly romantic of me is it! But then my view is that romance is for the living. Early in my career there was a well-known training film about the impact of death on a family. Its aim was to highlight the importance of life assurance and the relieving of stress on a widow… which of course had the agenda of getting me (and every other adviser) to sell more life assurance.

Over the years I have worked with many people who have lost a loved one. Some were far better prepared than others and some were not prepared at all. We get constant reminders that life is short and death is inevitable; yet most of us avoid thinking through the consequences of our death on the families and businesses we may leave behind.

It’s time to change that. You can take action today, there are not as many tomorrows as you think.