I wonder what Shelley would say, about his choices in his life up to the time of his death by drowning in a squall while on board his boat, at age 29. My thoughts in reading about his life, work, and finding his soul mate in Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and their lives, the works they created, that he would say, if given it to do over again, he might have made a few different choices, but if it meant never having the life he knew, and living to old age, he'd choose the first. Shelley lived life on his terms, and made his own choices. Going against even his own fathers wishes, being cut off from his inheritance, running off with Mary, even though he was already married to someone else, leaving his country, all the adversity they went through didn't matter to him enough to stop him from his wish fulfillment. I don't think so.
Life is hard, and any kind of choice that is made has repercussions.
Who knows what more Shelley would have produced in his poetry, and writings if he had lived longer. Some other notable persons that fascinate me are Lord Byron, Mary Cassat, Shakespeare, Picasso, Beatrix Potter, Isadora Duncan, Helen Keller, Albert Camus, Edgar Cayce, Cleopatra, Keats, Oscar Wilde, T. E. Lawrence, Vincent Van Gogh, Caravaggio, Nostradamus, Josephine Baker, to name just a few. An eclectic mix to be sure. What these notable personalities have in common is not the way they lived their lives, but how in living their lives they also created works that were unique, and original. Sometimes, even in spite of themselves it seems.