If you think that you are constrained in linear time, then you might think that you are stuck, you think that you can't change the past, and the future is a foregone conclusion. None of this is factual, and any decisions made with this wrong structure in one's mind will turn out poorly, or worse. (well, many of the good endings will be held away from you buy your own prejudices.)
If you believe time is linear you cannot understand the universe when it gives you spectacular information like Mandala Effects. And when you look at scientific data that shows your brain lighting up seconds before being asked to think up a random number, you will not mistakenly think that the world must be complete predictable and there is no free choice.
If you believe the past is set in stone, then you will block off many very potent healing modalities.
If you believe that there is only one past and one future, then you will believe, and do anything to go back in time and "fix the timeline". Not realizing that you can't, not because time won't allow it, but you can't make a different decision while you are thinking the same way.
When you think of time correctly, there is so much more that you can do, and it is so much easier to understand what is happening. Paradoxes just disappear.
Your Life on a movie reel
From someone's viewpoint that is outside our universe, our lives look a movie reel. Every moment in time is a picture on this strip of film. And, so, the past is said to be all the images that came before the current frame, and the future is all the images that come after that. So, from God's point of view, your whole life has been done, and so, he can accurately tell you what has happened and what will happen.
The whole movie exists.
Now, if you were able to go to the movie theater showing important people in your life, like your mother, father or siblings. You would find that their film, of the same moments that you were in, are not the same as your moments.
They really experience something different than you do. They have filters built up from their life that colors what they are seeing now. And that effects what happens. And more so, what their reactions of what is happening now is.
(From a Modern Materialistic Science view, this destroys everything. Reality, as in, a world out there, that is constant to all observers, doesn't exist. Cause and effect doesn't exist as we believe…)
Now that you know each person has a different movie reel, can you see how paradoxes just don't exist? Can you see how much you can change your life? Your past, your future, are not reliant on "reality". There is a lot more dimensions and directions your life can use.
What about the future? Isn't it set?
This where things get really weird for our brains to work out.
Our brain is set up to see time as linear. So much goes on in our brains to make it so. Like when you watch an animation, you see movement, where there is no real movement. This happens because of that part of your brain that puts these string of images together. It is the way you are meant to live life.
But, it is a poor platform from which to understand what is happening in your life.
From a certain view point, your whole life has been lived. Its all on the movie reel.
From your view point, you are living out your life and making decisions about the flow your life is taking.
And, if you know about the direction your life is working out (like you saw a part of your movie) and didn't like it, you could change the direction of your movie.
Basically, at that point, you will have two different movies. Your past you, has one movie, and the present you has a different movie. And BOTH are complete from beginning to end. Further, you cannot go back to the original movie. If you try, it will just make a third movie. (you can make as many movies as you want)
It is really weird to think of your decisions now creating your entire future. However, it is the same as saying your past is your past. (past is fixed) Neither is fixed, both are changeable, but both belong to your movie.
Deja vu
Let us say you looked into your future, or you were open to communication to your future self, and you experience deja vu. And this moment of communication showed you that you liked, or didn't like this particular future you were going towards, and then decided to make different decisions.
This happens all the time, and we really should train in checking in with our future self to see if we like the direction we are going.
In this way, our future (on that reel) can help us change to a different movie. The future effects the past, and changes the future.
And your friend in the past-now, could continue on with their life, just as their movie has already played out. (Usually, when this happens, you and your friend will go different ways, or continue to be friends with your old self. They were there, they did those actions, and they are still there on that movie reel)
Also, the change you make, may also change what your friend does, and you both go forward into a new future, because of one connection to the future.
When you realize how time really works, you can go back in time and change it so that your child had good parents (re-parenting) and even more fantastic, you can change your life to a completely different time-line. Like one, where you found a great partner and are now living with them. (yes, that has happened, where the person they were living with is now a very different person, in the same body)
Mandela Affects are happening to give us a glimpse of how reality is actually constructed. A whole concept, like a commercial you watched a million times on TV, is now different (Choosy moms choose Jif, or was it Jiffy?) The entire concept is changed in everyone's (who is sharing the current world) reality. Not a little change, like the color of something being slightly different, but like that whole commercial and everything about it, past and future, had something else spliced in.
And these affects have not caused a paradox, and caused the universe to collapse. They are just an example of how your past can be changed, or the future referencing a different past than what you remember.
Going down this rabbit hole, you quickly find out that the cause can be in the future, and the effect in the past. (take that modern science) Of course, no one believes you, until they too have experienced it. But, if you are open to these things, you can have much more control of your life and where it is going.
And that is a good reason to try and wrap your head around how time really works.