Who are you?

I used to read comic books a lot and there was a concept that I am sure is familiar to physicists or some kind of theoretical scientists. The concept was that every move we make spawn off a whole new parallel universe where you actually made that decision. Sort of like sliders.

So Sir has finally lost his mind and is posting gibberish! Ye of little faith. Let us take a walk down the parallel universe that is my poker career. I have AQ on the button. I raise for two bucks. The flop misses me totally. So I throw out a pot sized bet. I raised pre-flop, right? I get cold called. I throw 3 more bucks in on the turn. Gotta follow up the bet. I get cold called AGAIN! Ok I may be dumb but I am not stupid. I get checked to on the river and I check. Turns out my HU buddy had a boat and I am down to $17.

Switch to a parallel universe. I bet my few bucks pre-flop or fold. When the flop misses me I am willing to just walk away. I fold. I end up down to $23 and life is ok.

Which play is better? I take a lot of pots in this universe, but make like $2 or $4 taking the pot on the flop. In the other universe I never got down to $17, so when I won $7 with a boat later on I was actually ahead. Hmm. What do you think?