My belief is that life is like a big space with lots of doors, and your lives shape out depending on the door you decide to open and go in through. Just like how each decision we make is a way of either making or marring our lives, the same is how life's actions and inaction affect us. The bitter truth is that we can't necessarily tell what or how our lives would have turned out had we taken another route or path, since no one knows what the future has in store for us. In the same way, all of those closed doors hold different things in them, be it opportunity, disappointment, setbacks, or success.
That being said, the question about how much life would have turned out if I didn't attend the university I graduated from is something I can't necessarily answer, because I obviously don't know how it'll turn out. What I can say for a fact is that it wouldn't have turned out exactly how it does now had I not attended the university I graduated from, and my reason for saying that is because our actions in life come with their own results/repercussions, and the fact that my life turned out how it did now is as a result of the resources embedded in me opening the door of the institution I went to. Certainly, had I attended another university, I would have had a completely different experience and learned different lessons, and maybe my life would have been shaped into a different direction.
I remember I once talked about my decision when choosing a university years ago, talking about how I gained admission into a prestigious university close to our house, but I didn't tell your parents about it because I don't want to attend a school close to our house, and not forgetting a very close female friend gained admission into the same university. I'm certain had I gone through with that admission or another university aside from the one I attended, my life would have turned out differently; I might even have gone into a relationship with the lady in question because we were pretty close prior to that time. And those are aside from other possibilities of life experiences that I would have been open to that vary from the one I had.
The truth is that I recognize the fact that my wife presently isn't perfect or as I would have loved it to be, and that there are some happenings and experiences I had from my decision to attend the university I attended, which I still tomorrow wish I didn't experience, or should I say, I regret having to experience them. So had I attended another university, maybe I wouldn't have gone through those experiences, but then do I know if what lies in the other university ahead for me is even far worse than what I faced in the one I attended?
For this reason, I'm still grateful for my life, how far I've come, and the outcome of my decision to attend the university I attended. I know for a fact that all of the experiences I've had have a role to play in who I am today, and they are what shape my life to be resilient, focused, results-oriented, and much more. In a nutshell I'm grateful for everything, both for the good and the bad outcomes, because they've taught me valuable lessons that'll make me more careful about the next door I'll be opening. Most of all I'm thankful for the friends I made walking down this path.
All photos are mine.