You are not just who you think you are. Your present habits, ideology and personality traits take the spotlight because they are the only things that are immediately visible. “Who we are” is the combination of “who we were”. Our past beliefs, habits, decisions and experiences never really disappear and live inside each of us, slumbering. Good or bad, desperate to be forgotten or yearning to be re-lived, seemingly washed away by the currents of time, still living in the shadows within.
You’ll change, your best friend will change, even your parents whom you’ve known your entire life is bound to some change. Sometimes it’s neither good or bad, it just is. But that doesn’t mean they’ve turned into someone completely different. They are still the same goofy, kind and thoughtful person you once knew and loved, they’ve just added a few layers on top of who they once were. This ability to change and adapt to our environment is what made us the dominant species on this earth throughout evolution, and what will continue to.
Never be embarrassed of the person you once were, because like it or not, you’re still that same person, just with a new layer on top. We will always live in the shadows of our former self, haunted by our past mistakes and envious of our past memories. So be proud of your past. Learn to appreciate your stupid mistakes, and be thankful for those happy moments. They will always be within you and that’s what makes each of us unique. There’s also the fundamental core layer that every human shares. The need for attention, care and love, feeling anger, jealousy and fear, being alien to the outside world trying to make sense of everything and one-self. These are primordial feelings that are out of our conscious control.
There are times when you can actually feel the change taking over you. It may be because this change comes from conscious effort, or it may surprise you completely because it was a result of your surroundings and other factors. If the change is for the better embrace it, if it is for the worse nip in the bud, if it is just change let it be. There’s also the people around you who love and care for you, who has to see and accept this change. It will be hard, but they have to make space for the new you inside the bubble that they’ve defined you in. It’s their internal conflict, not yours. If someone really cares for you, they’ll accept you for you because they know, the layer they love is still within.
