If you could live in any time in history

[annabella1]

When would it be.
I always felt I should have been born about 100 years before I was. I think I would have loved the late 1800's, and the turn into the 1900's. The industrial revolution, the farming economy, the inventions etc. really seems like it was an exciting time.

[Southern_Gent]

Honestly, I'm not sure. There was a time when I thought it might be interesting to live during mideval times somewhere in Europe, but then the reality sets in that pre-modern times were quite harsh. For example, some of the things people had to worry about back then included: famine, war, religious inquisition, slavery, high infant mortality rates, genocide, succumbing to illness. Those were some of the major things, add to that minor issues such as: rancid food, waiting for your favorite vegetable or fruit to come into season, being too cold, being too hot, lack of hygeine, ... etc.

Taking this into account, we really have it good now. At least those that live in countries that have a modern civilization.

[Buck]

Honestly, I'm not sure. *There was a time when I thought it might be interesting to live during mideval times somewhere in Europe, but then the reality sets in that pre-modern times were quite harsh. *For example, some of the things people had to worry about back then included: famine, war, religious inquisition, slavery, high infant mortality rates, genocide, succumbing to illness. *Those were some of the major things, add to that minor issues such as: rancid food, waiting for your favorite vegetable or fruit to come into season, being too cold, being too hot, lack of hygeine, ... etc.

Taking this into account, we really have it good now. *At least those that live in countries that have a modern civilization. *

Most of recorded history is about the well off or the rich with little
history about the common mans life at all being written down.

From the history that was recorded about the "Joe Average" of the
past it was a VERY hard life. Very hard and dangerous indeed. So
when we think of the past is would serve us well to ignore the
"Hollywood" version or much of the text that was recorded by
the well off or the rich.

Me? I'll take the time I live in now......warts and all. *;D ;D

[elh]

I think I would have fit right in with the crowd that explored the WEST. Opening new trails living off the land, depending upon your wits to stay alive. Seams exciting to me.

[Ocala]

I think I would have fit right in with the crowd that explored the WEST. Opening new trails living off the land, depending upon your wits to stay alive. Seams exciting to me.
I second that ;D ;D

[bookwormom]

It would be interesting to visit , but live in a different time, nope. first of all, I do not care to wear skirts all the time, and unless you were well to do it would be a heck of a life. more than likely a short one, too.

[Txanne]

I would have loved to live in the times of Jefferson and the framers of the Constitution.

That struggle/battle would have been the most interesting of all to me.

But modern times --well much is to be said for women in these days---We use to have little input--we were not allowed to vote or even handle our own inheritances.

We would have had to deal with mealy flour--rotten meat---ravaged gardens--seldom owning enough material for more than 2 or 3 garments.

There was no containers invented for food canning--nor freezing.
News was months behind.

And we died at a very early age--from over work and child-birth---

We buried children early also---Women had to be made out of iron to survive all the early centuries

I guess I kinda like the 21st centuary

Txanne

[Buck]

I would have loved to live in the times of Jefferson and the framers of the Constitution.

That struggle/battle would have been the most interesting of all to me.

But modern times --well much is to be said for women in these days---We use to have little input--we were not allowed to vote or even handle our own inheritances.

We would have had to deal with mealy flour--rotten meat---ravaged gardens--seldom owning enough material for more than 2 or 3 garments.

There was no containers invented for food canning--nor freezing.
News was months behind.

And we died at a very early age--from over work and child-birth---

We buried children early also---Women had to be made out of iron to survive all the early centuries

I guess I kinda like the 21st centuary

Txanne


Yep, In spite of the rosey picture painted in books and Hollywood there
were no "Good Old Days" to live in.

TODAY is the best days. ;) ;)

[swedishfish]

Yep, In spite of the rosey picture painted in books and Hollywood there
were no "Good Old Days" to live in.

TODAY is the best days. ;) ;)

I am a student of history actually. I have considered this time and again. The more you learn about any period in history the more you realize how good we have it today. If there was a most interesting time to live in I might be tempted to pick the frontier times before the french-indian war in the michigan/ohio region ...the old northwest.

[hillsidedigger]

What about 100 years from now? Or 500?

That which was old will be new again. After the storm of this one-time possible and epehemeral event called high-tech civilization passes, the few survivors will have another opportunity to see what it was like in the good ole days.

[wax]

A man planted a garden in 1932 in south central Minnesota.
The spuds complained that just two years earlier there had been less moisture in the soil and rot would not have been an issue.

The corn groaned and declared that light much much better a decade before and insects never came around.

The beets spent most of the summer bitching that just 100 years before there had been sugar in the soil itself... something it never could prove but you know how beets are!

In fact the only one that did not complain was a small apple tree.

The man assumed that the little tree was simply uneducated and didn't know anything about history but one day he overheard the tree and the beets talking:
Beet - "If only I could have been born then"
Tree - "I don't really understand your complaint, you can grow and well... I don't understand your complaint."
Beet - "What is wrong with you? This is the worst time to be alive!"
Tree - "Ten thousand years ago you would not exist here, there would be two thousand feet of ice above us and nothing would live because sheets of ice would be scrubbing everything here to the bedrock. In fact that is what is wrong with the world today.
There are environmentalists right now a few blocks away who are attempting to save trees from being used for lumber because they do not understand what we trees are for... why we trees are here."
Beet - "You are a fascist!"
Tree - "Yes I am, I am hoping it comes into fashion soon!"

[Vidman]

I like the past....Camping is a pastime because we get to see how our ancestors lived...if you camp right. I think the reason I would be willing to live back then is the aquisition of Land. 1500 acres during the land grab days would not have been all that hard.

[TheUnboundOne]

Dear Forum Members,

I'm with Southern Gent, Buck, Swedishfish, Texanne, Ocala, and Bookwormom! It's a strange and wonderful feeling to have this much agreement.

The past is wonderful to learn from and there is good reason to preserve at least some of its artifacts and recorded wisdom. It's fun to see the past re-created and reinacted at a Renaissance Faire or at a play or in a historic battleground.

But as for living in the past, never. The "good ol' days" haven't been with us yet.

[cubcadet]

Hey annabella1
What do YOU say to all this?
As a deep ponderer myself, I have come up with something on this subject.
In the days annabella1 was referring to, the beginnings of American expansionism started taking place. Big government was starting to get a hold.
You see, back when our Nation was young, the center of political power was basically a sub-tropical hell, full of stagnant swampland, full of disease carrying insects and impassible, muddy dirt roads during most of the year, and freezing cold in winter months prevented anyone but the most hardy from traveling. There was only a few months most years when there was a quorum in Congress. Thus, the running of government was severely limited and our body of law remained essentially intact.
Just about the end of the War of Northern Agression, there was a great move towards the land west of the Mississippi River Basin. From that area almost to the Pacific, a person was essentially outside the United States of America. In time, however, with the building of rail lines and stage routes, together with telegraph lines, Big Government slowly moved west, bringing with it their law.
My theory is that the American condition was at no higher state than at the time of the 49`ers, up to perhaps the turn of the 20`th century, maybe a couple decades into the 1900`s. Maybe that was supposed to be the limits of our technological and governmental achievements. It`s very interesting to me that that time ushered in the beginnings of the revision of our immigratrion laws.
I believe that the real beginning of our economic and cultural slide into our current state began in this time. The advent of mass transportation, mass communication and later, centralized climate control (heating and cooling), combined to allow government to run non-stop.

[annabella1]

I do think that the time from about the 1880's to about the 1920's the US was in it's prime. There were still things wrong but the individual citizen had the ability to make his own way. Somewhere about the end of WW2 the American dream changed from being able to develop your own business, be what you wanted to be, to going to work your whole life for someone else who would take care of you by giving you money to buy what you need and when you had worked your whole life away they would give you a retirement(if you were lucky). Most of the richest families in the USA from the 1920's on made their money in ways that are now illegal. It takes so much money these days just to survive that no one has money to develop new businesses. A lot of good ideas out there are not being developed because it takes money to make money.

[cubcadet]

Amen sister.
There`s just too many non-producers being supported by the middle class, which is disappearing as a class. Classic Graeco-Roman scenario... the producers being called upon to support the indolent non-producing welfare element.

[walls0stone]

Pre-American Civil war.
However at that time their was little to no middle class eather. But Agg moved away from subsistance and into a for proffit situation.

[Cutter]

I think if I could have been a teenager in the early 60s in So Calif near the beach where you could surf all day and take your girl out to listen to the best music ever at night, it would have been perfect. Wait I did that, it was perfect, I WANT TO DO IT AGAIN.
God I hope when I die I come back as myself in 1960 again.

[Cutter]

One thing about my time in the 60s. In 1963 when I was 16yrs old and a surfer and loving all that rock and roll I met a girl. Marilyn was my first real girlfriend and we have been married now for42yrs this year. Thats one thing I would not change.

[harrybeast]

Besides space and the deepest parts of the ocean there is not much to explore. In times past an average man or woman had the ability if they wanted to set off on an adventure and explore new lands. That has been lost for mine and future generations.

I would love to have been in colonial times or the expansion into the West. To blaze a new trail that people would use later to reach their dreams of a new life would be something to really hang your hat on.

[Theyeti]

This question always elicits the ever practical disdain of the good ol' days. Disease and sanitation aside, the pre-industrial world didn't have nuclear weapons, high-explosives, fully auto weapons, massively oppressive regimes with the ability to actually control and monitor the populace with or without their consent.

More people have died in the twentieth century due to war and communism than the plague killed in the early 14th century. By far the modern world is the most dangerous of times to live. For reasons that would be unimaginable for pre-industrial people.

Granted we have 'modern medicine' of which many of us on the forum would be dead without the use of. Still, how many of us have to depend on these modern medical miracles as a result of the age we live in. Yes, many of us may have died at birth, but how has the ever growing population of the world been a benefit?

I don't mean to sound crass or cruel but to say that the world today is so much better than past eras is not taking everything into account. All eras had or have their dangers and evils. Some are much worse than others.

Though I live in the US a country unheard of in the history of mankind where personal freedom and living without the fear of oppressive government or tyranny is a gift dearly bought, I feel I'm watching that be ridden down. Which only adds to the danger of this age. This time is dangerous ever more so than any other. If the US becomes marginalized, changed to the point where our blood bought freedom is completely eroded? what then for danger to all. Plenty of other times and places to want to be.

Now taking all that into consideration, I'd take Ireland, say 500 - 700 AD. Relatively isolated and unspoilt, peaceful (more or less)with some of the worse danger being famine.

[Pitdog]

I believe that once I pass on to the other side, I will be able to see what lives I lived in some of these other times that we all talk about, or atleast get to see my ancestors and get a clearer picture, as I suffer from either little flashes of other lives, or Genetic memory. So instead of fantasizing or theorizing, I am just waiting on the opportunity.
I think I would have liked to have landed on the beach at France in a long boat............

[gregabob]

I've found myself thinking about this more recently. From this nations Founding thru 1900 were our most free times I think. Not for everyone, mind you, but for many. Sure we had problems, but we were FREE--no monetary inflation to speak of, no world wars that we were involved in, no excessive gov't intrusion into our lives. Wish we could have avoided the Civil War, that's for sure. I was born in 1962-seems I would have fit in better being born in 1862......no question times were tough as far as living conditions go. But has 'modern medicine' bred a society that can't survive without it? How many of us would have made it without any immunizations or operations? I know quite a few people who wouldn't have made it, now they have kids----are those kids weaker now? Are we weakening ourselves as a society by developing medical science to the point we can save a large percentage of folks who would have never made it to 5? Don't get me wrong, I'm not promoting 'Eugenics'. But where's the point where you can heal people with natural remedies vs. 'modern medicine'? Have we passed that point? Will we as a people become so weakened we won't be able to survive without a pantheon of drugs and procedures? Just rambling thoughts...... :-/

[wax]

greg - Will we as a people become so weakened we won't be able to survive without a pantheon of drugs and procedures?

Wax- This is a great question if we draw it out in some ways and perhaps pervert it to fit within the thread:

I once sat in on a UCLA class led by six biologists who concentrated on the "biological weakening" of mandkind through societal protection.
The first quarter of the classes were boring beyond belief! Stats and chemical equations and well... BORING!
But then it became extremely interesting because the six so called experts had a very different approach concerning the problem.

The problem of course is extremely clear:
People who used to die in childhood are now living to breed and pass the "weakness" that would have killed them onto another generation who carries that gene which would have been naturally suppressed.

Sounds simple right? Anyone with childhood diabetes "should" naturally die and thus not pass this weakness onto another generation but they are instead given lifesaving drugs which allow them to reproduce and thus an increase of over 500% of childhood diabetes in the last century or so.

Half of the experts were from the "Berkeley" way of thinking and attacked all others because man has somehow become "more" than an animal etc.
Two were... not from the California way of thought and thus supported (in fact demanded) that the weak be weeded out or mankind would suffer!
But there was one guy who had spent most of his life digging up fossils and making absolutely no assumptions about them that caught my attention.

It is a given that man's near future just as his recent past will involve stresses which insure vaste population reductions.
Natural selection is something that can not be avoided.
It is a simple law with simple rules that man can not pretend does not exist.

Few people realize that there is an entire population which is "immune" to aids. It is true. They have been exposed and they carry the virus but they have no ill effects what-so-ever.
Unfortunately for Africa they are all from northern European groups and they have blue eys and for the most part blond hair!
One might assume nazi'ist propoganda but the fact is this group has something in common that most ethnicities would not ask for --- all of them saw 90% of their ancestors wiped out by the Black Death! 90 percent...
And nature has an absolute maximum concerning such things as aids.... ebola... plague of any sort... 90%.
But the odd thing is that we have absolutely no idea how a 10% survival rate would relate in any way to a connection between the plague and aids. Oh we have looked but we have not found anything.
Believe me men and women have looked!
Nothing!

So it all comes down to this and it is extremely important.
Someday... maybe soon maybe in a thousand years.
The human population is going to be faced with another end game scenerio.
Don't worry because we have faced many and man is a hard one to destroy.
We don't know exactly what that scenerio will be but we do know that it will happen because history is cyclical and there is nothing we can do about it.
It might get really hot like modern fearmongers like to declare or it might get extremely cold which historical trends tend to support but the point is we don't know.

The sun could pump out a pulse that disrupts the human brain pattern and only those who have a chemical addiction will be able to handle it!
Crazy?!?
Maybe... but then we don't know.

Maybe only those who carry a very special gene of a child who survived childhood diebetes with the assistance of drugs and then passed that strange portion of sequence to offspring will have a chance.

[MissouriFree]

When would it be.
I always felt I should have been born about 100 years before I was. I think I would have loved the late 1800's, and the turn into the 1900's. The industrial revolution, the farming economy, the inventions etc. really seems like it was an exciting time.

I have to agree but i would not want the early 1900's
I would go to 1870-1890. The American spirit and values were at thier peak then I believe. Yes we have all the conveniences of modern times today ,but we have lost the values and spirit that we had then. And yes i would live in the mid west to near west .

[greenetuckian]

There are many eras I would love to visit, I am especially interested in twentieth century US history specifically the period between 1920 - 1970s. There are many other times and cultures I would like to experience also.

I don't know that I would choose any other time than right now if I knew I had to stay there though. Time is like a really good book and I can't wait to see what will happen next.

[Quietgentleman]

I always like this question because you have to look at it in two ways. Would you like to be in that time with the knowledge you have now. If you were in the time you say and have no romantic veiws of it do you suppose you would be looking at another period in history. What I find really funny is somewhere in the future someone gonna look on our times with the same romantisism as we do other past times.

QGM

[Semi-Crazy]

Have you guys thought about whether you are going back in time, or plain being from that time? I think Id rather have some of the modern things today like good health care and all that stuff, but then have the work ethic and seemingly no feeling of pain or cold like they did before. Anyone who wants to go to 1800 or 500bc has to stop and think that they sure wouldnt have dial-up interent, let alone highspeed.

[Klapton]

I think I would have fit right in with the crowd that explored the WEST. Opening new trails living off the land, depending upon your wits to stay alive. Seams exciting to me.

Yup. Or if not one of those "pioneers" (the ones who truly opened up the frontier) a "settler" would have been cool too. I think I would have preferred to have followed the oregon trail AFTER it existed than necessarily be one those making it. Arriving in the West after towns had sprung up would have made it much easier to get goods and services when needed, while still having all the freedom and opportunity of freshly-stolen native lands.

[CarolAnn]

If I could be a time tourist, rather than a resident, I'd go back to 700 or 800 BC in Turkey to the time they were building the underground cities in Cappadocia, Turkey and see who the architect was, and learn how and why they did that. Or the people who built Petra, the lost city of stone.

Then I'd zoom forward to the time of the basket makers & anasazi in Arizona and Utah and interview them for the same reasons! We don't know much about who they were, why they built as they did or where they went when they left.

It wouldn't surprise me if archeologists discover many more people who at different spots in history turned their eyes to the cliffs and decided to dig into them!

[walls0stone]

If I could live any time in history, I'd go back to a few days before O'bama's mama and daddy met and start putting salter peter in his dinner.

[Lobo]

"freshly-stolen native lands. "

Thank you Klapton.

I used to play with the pioneer/homesteader era idea but as I matured I realized I would like to live in this island pre 1492! Some of my ancestors who were here when Columbus arrived took one look at those ships and said to each other ---"There goes the neighborhood!"

Lobo Lone Wolf

[harvester]

In the beginning of the settling of america. I can see myself with a passel of children boiling clothes on an outdoor fire just infront of my cabin, while DH and the older children are out working to clear fields for tabacco.
It was a horribly harsh life, and at time tragic. but the rewards, granted few, were so fulfilling and self gratifying that they simply can not be beat today.
If anyone has ever read the book by michner called Chesapeake, thats me. Even down to being Quaker!
Some people i know would dream of the princess in the castle type of life, not me, i dream of the building a life from the ground up, the blood, sweat and tears. To me, thats a dreamy life.
Guess im a sucker for hardships huh?

[dryflyshaman]

i would love to have been born in 1963 in east texas in a rural town.

i would grow up wandering the fields and forest without a care in the world.

i would go fishing and hunting with my daddy nearly every weekend of the year.

i would help my dad tend a big garden, help him cook sugar cane into syrup.

i would grow up in a society that valued freedom.

oh wait...


i did do that.

[maritimemama]

I would go back to the 1940's-50's when the world held such promise!

[offgridbob]

I just want to be a time travelar

[Grizzy]

i would love to have been born in 1963 in east texas in a rural town.

i would grow up wandering the fields and forest without a care in the world.

i would go fishing and hunting with my daddy nearly every weekend of the year.

i would help my dad tend a big garden, help him cook sugar cane into syrup.

i would grow up in a society that valued freedom.

oh wait...


i did do that.

Well if offgridbob gits a time machine mebe borrow it an go back there.. an please can I come too?

~dreamsofbettertimes~

[Wyobuckaroo]

I would DEFINITELY have to say I would like to have been a young adult in the mid / late 1880s between the Black Hills and Big Horn Mountains.

That is where my Grandpas told stories about people they knew as young men who were the movers and shakers of there time in that area.

I grew up around an old guy who saw a shooting exhibition put on a guy by the name of Ed McGivern. The guy I knew said he got to have a couple beers with the guy and several other members from the local gun club there. They were directors, owners and other influential people from the Homestake Gold Mine.

There were several other old guys who told stories about the Spanish American war and WW1. They were very interesting.

Teddy Roesevelt was in the ND badlands then, Buffalo Bill was in and out of the area at that time. Just a lot of local history that has always interested me.

Yee haw
Wyo

[Txanne]

I would live the years that Texas was being formed into a young Republic.

Txanne

[Wyobuckaroo]

Annie............
You just want to chase Davey Crockett..............
Wyo
(snort, chuckle, bwahaahahahahaha)

[Laura]

Right here.
Right now.

I remember the first man on the moon.
I lived through the 70's and watched what drugs and free sex did. I watched as people burned bras, and flocked for abortions. I watched a lot of 'women power' stuff.
I lived through the 80's when AIDS hit the scene, when the "me" generation really came into itself. When divorce was skyrocketing.
I became a mom in the 90's, and had a chance to 'raise' them different.
And by the Grace of God, they are really, cool people.
I watched a lot of changes in my short life....some big, some not so big. But changes all the same.

I love this time, because I have all the modern conveinences, but can choose the old time ways as well.
Example, if I want to hand wash my clothes, and hang dry them, I can. OR I can use a washer and dryer. Things like that.

I love life. Right here, right now. I really do.

[Mike LI]

Right here.
Right now.

I remember the first man on the moon.
I lived through the 70's and watched what drugs and free sex did. I watched as people burned bras, and flocked for abortions. I watched a lot of 'women power' stuff.
I lived through the 80's when AIDS hit the scene, when the "me" generation really came into itself. When divorce was skyrocketing.
I became a mom in the 90's, and had a chance to 'raise' them different.
And by the Grace of God, they are really, cool people.
I watched a lot of changes in my short life....some big, some not so big. But changes all the same.

I love this time, because I have all the modern conveinences, but can choose the old time ways as well.
Example, if I want to hand wash my clothes, and hang dry them, I can. OR I can use a washer and dryer. Things like that.

I love life. Right here, right now. I really do.

You and I are pretty much the same here. It's amazing some of the stuff I did and now I know better and raise my son in a completely different manner.

I would like to go back to the Revolution though or sometime around 1840. A nice simple life, not easy but simple.

[Teg]

My mother used to say I belonged in the 1950's, but I am good with where I landed. :)

[MollyPitcher]

I have a great love for studying the colonial and revolutionary eras of our country, from about 1750 through 1800. Pre-Jackson. Life then reads as being very hard, death often coming at a young age from extremely painful diseases or horrible accidents. Jefferson's young wife, Washington's step children, Adam's middle aged daughter. Countless soldiers and patriots, killed outright or dying from limbs or organs shattered by round balls or by freezing, cholera, or gangrene. On the western frontiers such as the Ohio river area, and the Tennessee valley, Indians were still problematic and mountain lions and bears were common.

But it also reads as a time when someone could pull themselves up by the bootstraps and make a good life for themselves with very little start-up capital. In the city, Franklin, a runaway from his brother, opened his printing shop on credit and by practicing a strict frugality, made his business a success. Even single or widowed women were able to operate successful businesses such as inns, restaurants, tailors, and even farms.

The country seemed to be wide open for people to make whatever kind of life they wanted for themselves. There were those born into wealth, but there were also self-made men who rose to the highest levels of society. Other men measured their success differently, men like Daniel Boone, who loved living in the wilderness.

If I were able to live any time during the past, I think I would choose the mid to late 1700's.

[momma_to_seven_chi]

Here and now. We were each born "for such a time as this". We wouldn't be able to fulfill our purpose if we didn't live within our time that was appointed.

[Aamylf]

Pre-feminism, post flush toilets...

No really, I've always thought late 1800s and early 1900s. Semi-city dweller. My great grandparents lived within spitting distance of a town, but lived on a farm. From all accounts, they worked together and, horrors, she wore pants!

[windmo]

Sometime between 1900 - 1950 would have been perfect for me.

[NCLee]

I've thought about this, from time to time, too. Often feel like I was born at the wrong time. But, I wasn't. Born when I was supposed to be born to do whatever it is I'm supposed to do/be in this life.

If I could go back in time my first choice would be during Christ's time here on earth. To sit at His feet and listen to Him say the words we often read. To hear what He said that wasn't recorded for us to read today. To look into His eyes. Sometimes wonder what I would have seen there - compassion, pain, God's glory, sorrow, wrath, and probably so much more that's beyond understanding in this life.

If I could go back in time, my next choice, would be to spend some time with my grandmother, when she was a young woman. Born prior to 1900, there's so much I could learn from her and my grandfather, too. Day to day life before modern "convenience" arrived.

If I could go back in time, my last choice, would be to revisit my own life. To re-learn much of what I've forgotton before REA brought electric lines to our farm. To correct some of the foolish mistakes I've made over the years. To truly enjoy for the first time things I took for granted. Mama's scratch coconut cake. Daddy's quiet strength in times of trouble.

No, I don't want to go back, in time, to remain there. I'm drinking a cup of microwave instant coffee as I type. The memory of the work it took, in the past, to get a cup of coffee is strong. -- splitting wood with an axe and filling up the wood box by the kitchen stove. -- shivering while building a fire and waiting till the stove got hot. -- filling the coffee pot with water pulled from the well a bucket at a time -- waiting for the coffee to make. This morning: Fill a cup with water from the faucet, nuke it for 80 seconds, stir in a spoonfull of instant -- coffee is ready.

And, there's one more factor. I want to be around, now, to see what happens, next. Especially if it's Revelation 22:12

Lee

[rice paddy daddy]

I was born 30 years too late. I would rather have been in one of the Infantry Regiments of the Fifth Infantry Division, across France into Germany in 1944-45, instead of Vietnam with the Fifth in 1969-70.
I even prefer Big Band music, love my M1 rifle (the M16 was OK, but has no character), and at this stage I'd be about thru with THIS earth and all it's maladies.
But then, on second thought, I'd never have met the woman of my dreams, so forget it, I'll just stay right here.