If only I had gotten up 10 minutes earlier, I wouldn’t have been stuck in traffic, found parking faster, and not missed the only available flight until tomorrow to get home. I missed my family dinner, and big event.

I was saying goodbye before leaving the party, and I stayed for 10 more minutes talking to people on the way out. We ended up having a few celebratory shots before leaving, which ended up getting me and my friends drunk. Since I was the “most sober of the group,” I had to drive, in the middle of the night, back home. About halfway there, I crashed my car and almost lost my friends.

They told me: “You have to feed him at 7pm sharp. If not, he’ll get desperate.” I arrived 10 minutes late at the house of the dog that I am taking care of, and I found the sofa completely destroyed, and the dog with its mouth injured by the wood and wires. I had to take him to the vet, and pay the bill that was four times what I was going to charge for taking care of him.

Leaving somewhere 10 minutes early, staying 10 more minutes doing dishes in the kitchen, trying 10 more minutes before quitting, not giving someone the opportunity to stay 10 more minutes close to you…

Life could change in a single moment, an instant, but these moments just happen without any possibly of being changed. However, 10 full minutes is a whole world where everything or nothing could have happened, where you had control and let it go, where you had time to think about the consequences, and still, the outcome was unfavorable. And the worst part of all is that you know it could’ve been different, but it didn’t, because of you.