Something that helps me cope with periods of malaise, pain, or discomfort is reminding myself that the me I am today is not the final me.

This is just a version of myself, iterated from previous versions of myself, and every aspect of my being—my life, my career, my relationships, all of it—are prone to revision. That’s how I got to where I am now, and that will continue to happen in the future.

Even as we work toward goals that would change a whole lot about our lives, we tend to imagine ourselves enjoying the fruits of those investments and labors as the same people we are, today.

We recall moments from our past, gobsmacked by the choices we made and opportunities we missed, failing to remember that we were different people then, and the things we did (or didn’t do) probably made a lot more sense in the moment, to that earlier iteration.

I find reminding myself of this reality helpful because it suggests that at some point, inevitably, my life will be different from how it is today. I will be different.

My current context shouldn’t feel confining, then, because the me of right now is just a blip on that larger chronological continuum, for better and for worse.

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