And we have seen this in quite a few of Trek's best episodes..."when I pulled on one of those threads it unraveled the tapistry of my life", the point was one decision can have a domino effect on everything else, for better or worse.
What if the Enterprise C wasn't destroyed?
What if Picard hadn't fought the Naussicans?
I think those "what if" stories resonate with the audience because we all have "what if"s in our mind about our own life