Another difference between Ted and Rick is their reaction to exploration while on their revenge quest. Ted shows no signs of even noticing the view that his friends are awestruck by, while the first scene we see after young Rick invents portal travel is him smiling as he lays on the pizza planet. Granted, Ted's journey is essentially a speedrun of Rick's crybaby backstory, so his grief was probably still a lot fresher than Rick's, but it's still interesting. Ted even refers to himself as impatient when he talks about patching his flat tyre instead of calling for a tow. Then again, young Rick seems to have felt limited by daily life and dreamt of something greater, while Ted began his arc by taking joy in the simple things (such as a deer on the side of the road), so perhaps this shows Rick's desire for adventure and new things and Ted's inability to find happiness in these. It makes me wonder just how much Rick really changed about himself in order to become Ted.