A few weeks ago, I wanted to check for something in my notes app, and, somehow, I ended up scrolling for hours.
It’s interesting how time always provides a new perspective.
I discovered old plans I had forgotten about, most of which I wrote down when I was in a much different headspace in life.
Some of those plans have changed, others have evolved into other different things, and the rest are no longer relevant to my current outlook of the future.
I found old prayers too.
A lot of which God has already answered.
There were things I once desperately wanted that have now become part of my everyday life. And there were also things I thought I needed that I barely think about today.
Of course, there were also the prayers I’m still patiently waiting on answers for.
I found story ideas I never executed, fiction and non-fiction ideas I wrote down and never returned to. Some are terrible, and some are ridiculously good that I wonder why I even forgot about them.
As I scrolled through those many different notes accumulated over many days and weeks and months and years, I had two distinct feelings.
The first was nostalgia, because it felt like I was discovering a much older version of myself.
The other can be described as “anxiety”, I guess, because I felt like I had been missing out on something very critical by forgetting that much older version of myself.
How easily we forget the parts of us that don’t linger in our daily conscious/unconscious memories.
I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing, but I know the gift of writing and documentation is one of the biggest privileges humanity has received.
I also know we often get so caught up in the present and so focused on the future that we sometimes forget that there is an us who once stood exactly the us of today is standing now.
An us that had different problems, different dreams, different fears, different prayers, and different expectations about where life would be by now.
One of the interesting things about revisiting the past is that you might find a sort of grounding there.
You might realise that you’ve grown in ways you never consciously noticed, or you might find things worth bringing back, like old dreams or old feelings or old friends or old desires.
Or maybe looking back might remind you that you’re now a shadow of your former self, nothing but an inverse mirror of all that you once wanted to do and become.
You might realise that you’ve let your fears, insecurities, or the words and actions of others drown out the part of you that was once excited and eager about certain things.
Maybe that’s why many people don’t like to look back.
Either way, I still think it’s a risk worth taking.
So, check your notes today.
You just might like what you see. Or you might hate it.
Regardless, just remember that you have the power to decide how the future you will feel about all the notes that you’re writing today.
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