How to Hack Time, Change Your Past and Change Your Life

Wouldn’t we all love the chance to live a few hours of our lives over again and do them differently? We all have words we wish we could recall, words we withheld that we wish we had uttered. Things that bring us pain, regret and shame.

What would you give for the chance to go back in time and do those things again, but get them right this time? Hacking Time (my personal favorite of this year) creatively conveys the concept of Teshuvah as explained in Chassidus: Not only can we change ourselves, we can change the past. We are not defined by our past mistakes; we are architects of our future. We can all be time travelers if we dare.

This life-altering idea is illustrated with engaging anecdotes and stories such as:

• What a mother did after seeing the loss of her 13-year-old daughter in a car crash
• What inspired the profoundly “secular” Jew to bankroll Jewish causes?
• Where famed psychologist Carl Jung got it woefully wrong
• The Talmudic sage who used his questionable past to good ends
• Why the Chasidic master was jealous of the biggest sinner in town
• The unlikely book that helped topple the Soviet Union

We can change the meaning of past horrors, and we can change the meaning of our own lives. No matter what we have done wrong, no matter the things we have ruined, if we decide today to start acting differently, then we will change the meaning of our lives. The story is not yet written. The outcome is far from final. And most remarkable of all, we are the authors who hold the pen in our hands.

Stop being a prisoner of your past and become the architect of your future.