The 'Tapestry' that changed everything

I am a soft sci-fi buff, which means I'll watch all the 'light' sci-fi shows that are out there, especially the epic-level stuff backed by major studios: the Star Wars movies and games, Babylon 5, the various "Star Trek" incarnations, and Battlestar Galactica, original and re-imagined. As much as I find the technology and subject of space exploration fascinating, what I enjoy most about these shows is that they are blank canvasses for some tremendous epic-level storytelling and character development. One of the episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation", (or TNG) really had a profound effect on me, 1993's 'Tapestry'. In this episode, Picard experiences his own death from a random terrorist attack, and is transported to the 'afterlife' by his archnemesis 'Q'. Q gives Picard a chance to relive a pivotal part of his own life in order to save himself from dying decades into the future. Picard does so, by playing it safe, and avoids being stabbed in the heart as a recent Starfleet Academy graduate. Instead of requiring an artificial heart, he gets to keep his original one. However, by 'playing it safe' in the events leading up to the confrontration that he manages to avoid, he changes his entire outlook, and Picard re-appears as a lowly blue-suited science officer on the Enterprise, rather than as the Captain. When I saw the Picard whose life had been 'saved', but living out his life as a less-ambitious lieutenant, rather than the Captain that we all know him to be, living a 'dreary' life, and handing reports from one superior to another without any hope of advancement, it was my wake-up call. When I first saw it, it blew me away. It was 1993, and I was working as a lowly insurance adjuster, living at home with the folks, and hanging out with many of the same people from high school. Right then and there, I knew I had to do something to change the trajectory my life was going in. It was from this episode that I found the motivation to get my ass into grad school, which led to my ability to leave L.A., and the west coast, and even the country, altogether. Without this to really highlight the fact that I had my choices ahead of me, I dread to imagine what my life would have turned out to be. Granted, I'm not the captain of a starship, or even a director or manager in any line of business or enterprise (no pun intended). I still have yet to prove myself on so many levels, and thus the verdict on my life is still out, but at least this episode can always serve to me as a reminder, no matter where I am that I still need to forge ahead.