It’s happened to me a few times lately. I’m going about my business and I spot someone I recognise from twenty, thirty years ago. That full-body recognition, the kind you feel in your gut before your brain’s caught up. Then a beat later: no. Wrong person.
Then the second realisation lands. Even if it had been them, they wouldn’t look like that anymore. My memory of that person is frozen in time. The head of hair, the poor attempt at a moustache, the athletic figure, all of it would have fallen victim to the signs of a life lived (nice way of saying getting old).
It’s not just them.
Mistaking a stranger for an old friend sends me straight to wondering how others see me. I kinda think I look the same. I even kinda feel the same.
It’s hard to read the label from the inside of the tin.
But the same thing that just happened to that poor stranger has happened to me too. Like the person I mistook him for, I’m not frozen in time either. I just don’t get to watch it happen from the outside.
If them, what about me?
I wonder how that person I haven’t seen in decades has changed, not just in how they look, but in how their life looks compared to all those years ago. Are they married? Kids? On a second marriage? What happened to all those plans and dreams they had back then? Did it work out? Hell, what does “work out” even mean at this point. More importantly, are they happy and well?
Now turn all of that around on yourself. We rarely give deep thought to the path that’s led us to this exact moment. You are not who you were. Most of us just plough forward without much deliberate thought or planning, and call it getting on with life.
A review is a chance to be deliberate about what comes next
I’m not suggesting you wallow in the past. Far from it. I’m suggesting you use the path you’ve already walked to help map the one still ahead. Think about the things you thought were important back then and check how they stack up against who you are now and where you actually want to head. What’s the thing you put down because life got in the way? Is it something you’d like to pick up again?
You are not who you were. Most of us just plough forward and call it getting on with life.
Try this
Pick one thing from everything above. Just one. Message the old friend you half-recognised in a stranger’s face. Dig out the plan you shelved when life got busy. Write down what mattered to you at twenty-five and tick off what’s still true now.
Don’t overthink which one. Pick it, and do something with it this week. Not “one day.”
Me now
I caught up with an old friend from way back recently. He’s the same but different, and I imagine I am too, to him.
I’ve done things in my life I’m proud of, and plenty I’m not. But one thing I’m sure of: I’m not done yet. When I look back in ten years at where I am right now, what will be different? How much of me will still be me?
The whole premise of this project is to help myself stay curious to stay relevant, and help you do the same.
Get going. And get changing.
Stop planning the big leap. Make a small bet.
Most of the people I’ve interviewed on the podcast didn’t reinvent themselves in one dramatic move. They started a small thing on the side, and one day they looked up and it had become their actual job.
That’s a small bet, and I’ve built a kit to help you make one.
It’s five short lessons, a worksheet, and a coach you can talk to that asks the awkward questions and shrinks your idea until it’s embarrassingly small. Two weeks, one real first move, no quitting your job required.
It’s US$15. No hustle, no 5am alarms, and nobody telling you to bet the house.
[Get the Small Bet Kit] → https://generalistalan.eden.so/small-bet-kit
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