If you could go back in time and do just one thing different for every decade of you’ve lived in, what would you do? Equal 10 year intervals, I’ll start:

• 1979: Tell my dad not to buy that Oldsmobile diesel.
• 1989: Be less dorky. Stop dreaming about the girl down the street who didn’t know I existed. Eat different food once in a while.
• 1999: That was a tough year. I did so many dumb things and wasn’t very nice to many people. Hard to pick just one thing, in hindsight I’d probably change everything. Go to work for Microsoft, even if it was already a bit late.
• 2009: The year my oldest daughter was born. I wouldn’t change a thing.
• 2019: While taking that nice vacation in Panama, sneak on a freighter in the Canal headed for Shanghai. Hitch a ride to Wuhan. Find my way into the Wuhan wild foods market in the wee hours of the night, check nobody inside. Pour gasoline everywhere and light that baby on fire. Who doesn’t want to be a superhero for a day?

Of course the question is, if you were able to go back in time and light the Wuhan stinky foods market on fire would anybody believe you did it to prevent a global pandemic that would kill thousands in the year 2020? Would enough people be willing to step outside their comfort zone and really consider that possibility? Even with the not-too-distant history of SARS, MERS, Ebola, H1N1 or the Madagascar plague outbreaks? If we knew then what we know now, way back when in 2019, would we be willing to change our ways?

How about you, what would you do different?