BEING UNIVERSALLY HUMAN

There are moments in life when our younger selves occasionally revisit us. I do not mean in photographs or fading memories, but in the quiet theater of our minds. We see them as they were hopeful, uncertain, ambitious, wounded, and sometimes curious. They arrive without invitation and stand silently before us, as if conducting their own private reviews of life that we have lived. In those moments, time seems to bend, and the distance between who we are and who we have become disappears. 

I often wonder why these encounters occur. Perhaps they are not memories at all, but opportunities for reconciliation. Could it be our younger self comes seeking answers to questions that could not yet be understood. Did we survive the disappointments? Did we remain true to the things that mattered? Did we become someone worthy of the dreams we once carried? The purpose of the visit may not be an evaluation as much as understanding. Perhaps the intension is simply a chance for both versions of ourselves to finally meet.

These encounters are hardly ever without emotions. They carry gratitude, humility, and occasionally sorrow for the roads not taken. Yet, their greatest gifts remind us that life was never measured solely by accomplishments, but by wisdom gathered and the lessons learned along the way. In their presence, we are allowed glimpses of our own journeys through their gentler eyes. Perhaps that is why they return from time to time – not to ask whether we succeeded, but to help us recognize how far we have traveled.