Do You Remember Where You Were In 2013? If You Want To Move Forward, You Have To Remember How Far You’ve Come

Do you remember where you were 5 years ago?

Do you remember what you wore, and what you worried about? Do you remember the things you wished for, the uncertainties that loomed in your mind? Do you remember what you listened to, and the people you swore you’d never get over?

We aren’t meant to live in the past, but sometimes, remembering how far we’ve come is the only way to motivate us to keep going.

A few years ago, you would have considered the life you have now out of your wildest dreams.

When you’re first starting out, you’re waiting for so many things. When you’re young, things, like having your own apartment and being able to pay your own bills, aren’t givens, they are goals. And as they start to fade into normalcy, you begin aspiring to travel, to finding a partner you love, to having a job you’re happy to tell people about.

When you look back, you will realize how low the bar was. You will realize that things were only complicated because you were complicating them. You will realize that the path was so simply laid before you, if only you didn’t hesitate. You will realize that the things you lost were not losses, they were redirects. When you trace back through the events that defined your life, you will realize that you were hours, days and months away from your greatest breakthroughs… though they felt so far away at the time.

It will be hard to believe that so much changed from one year to the next. It will be hard to believe that you once owned that shirt, or spoke to that person, or were afraid of doing that thing.

And it will be hard to believe that the signs pointing you toward your fate were there all along. The things you realized you loved would become your callings. The friends that you clicked with are still here all these years later. The habits that undid you and made you reinvent yourself again and again.

Of course, the point of reflecting isn’t just to pat yourself on the back.

The point is that right now, you’re closer than you think you are.

Right now, you have the life you’ve dreamt of, the only problem is that a new dream replaced it once you had it. You have everything to be grateful for, and everything to be hopeful about. You only have to remember. 

Share this along with a few lines about where you were 5 years ago – and what surprises you about where you are now.