The New You

It’s amazing to think of how little we know ourselves. That cliché expression about living life in hindsight just means that at any given time we don’t know as much about life as we thought, and we don’t fully know ourselves. Why? Because everyday new secrets are revealed that we had not previously known about…pretty much everything, including the essence of who were are.

I don’t know if people change over time as some believe. I think people only discover new things about themselves and put the pieces together about who they were all along and then relish in those new epiphanies. And just when you thought you had a finger on yourself, you discover even more.

So, do we change over time, or is it simply an organic transition from what was not known, to what is now known? Is there a difference?

When I was twenty-two I entered the teaching profession as a square peg, but I never knew I was a square peg with regards to my philosophies on children or education. I didn’t even know what my philosophy was, though when someone asks you at twenty-two what your philosophy of education is, you come up with pretty textbook verbiage to help you sound good, but it isn’t real. It couldn’t be. How do you know? A better question might be, “What is your truth and knowledge, right now?”

We don’t know anything, until we experience life. Until we teach. Until we engage with others. Until we enter a system. Until we have a family. Until we are forced to examine our successes and pitfalls and then analyze why we rose or fell at any given time. Then what? We redefine, bask in those self-discoveries, and then become who we were always meant to be.

My advice is get to know yourself. The you that is you will be someone different next year and the year after, and this is a great thing because ultimately, everyone’s goal should be to discover who they really are and relish in the ever-changing reality, and celebrate when new self-discoveries are made. It may come with consequence with respects to your personal and professional lives, and your trajectory. But before we can embrace the world and those around it in full, we have to have an appreciation that we, as individuals, matter, as much as our individual journey’s matter, perhaps more than the journey we have with others.

Don’t disregard change, embrace it, for it is the new you!