“It’s okay to outgrow your past self”.
We all undergo changes. It’s rightly said, “Change is the only constant in life.” Sometimes, we change and would be better, sometimes, it’s the opposite. We become worse than we were. Whatever it may be, change keeps happening. We change drastically everyday although we don’t notice it. For a bit of context, compare yourself with the past you. The past may be of any length. It may be yesterday or ten years ago.
With or without our knowledge, we change into different people from what we were. We acquire new characteristics and develop certain habits that make us different from the past version of ourselves. We ponder sometimes over the question, “Is the change from what we were to what we are, right?”
The answer is, it’s absolutely right. You gain perspective, knowledge, information, and experience every single day. What use is all that if you stay the same and let everything go over your head? If you absorb even 1% of the information you encounter everyday, it’s bound to change you. You form new opinions, apply new principles, have more realisations, every single day. All of this, over a certain amount of time, can change you completely, and you can become a different person with a different attitude altogether. It’s only natural to change and outgrow your past self and cringe at your messages from a year (or even a month) ago. All of us change, either consciously or unconsciously. You can’t stop it from happening, but you can change the way you change, i.e., whether you change for better, by inculcating good habits and outlooks, which is essentially “growth”, or if you change for the worse.
Even if you change for the worse due to certain circumstances and you recognise that in time, what matters is that you try to change that negative change to a positive, or just a neutral one. Of course it’s hard, but nothing worth having comes easy, like a good habit or a good mindset.
Change has to happen, and you can’t know if it’s 100% good or not. Let’s give you an example. A baby, with zero negative thoughts, grows. Becomes an adult with so many thoughts with at least a bit of negativity. Is it for the better or for the worse? We can’t say. That change has to happen, you can’t control that. That’s the nature of change. Change always has two faces — better and worse. You should embrace the good and try to correct the bad.
You outgrow yourself. You exceed your so-called “limits”. That’s okay. Your past self set those limits. It didn’t know the future. But now you’re in the present. You look back on the past. Comparison to your past self is natural, just don’t regret. Everything has happened for your own good, whether you realise it or not. You just need to think about it and have a positive outlook.
Today, you may find yourself doing and experiencing the things your younger self thought never thought you would, but life changes, you change, your outlook changes, and even if you do the things you once swore not to, that’s okay. If you have dreams and aspirations that are different than the ones you had a year ago, that’s fine too. Remember that you don’t owe your past self anything. It doesn’t exist now. Grow. Change your mindset. Change for the better, and do things in a way you won’t regret them later on.
Thank you so much for reading this blogpost! We hope you gained something out of it : )
The original featured image used in this blogpost is by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.
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– JHS and AY
JHS and AY Write 