I read once that if you’re not at least a little bit embarrassed by the person you were about a year ago, you’re probably not growing enough. The concept that you’re not going to be the same person in a few years’ time is beautiful and scary and bewildering and also, quite possibly, a big releif. What does it mean if you’re embarrassed by the person you were a month ago, or last week, or yesterday? How fast am I growing, then? I don’t know. There’s something about using shame as a metric for measuring growth that doesn’t feel right, to me. The business of growing and shifting and changing is fuuucking uncomfortable because… in order to grow, you have to be making mistakes all the time. You’ve got to mess up, in order to learn things. Messing up is painful, but it’s nothing compared to the embarrassment of looking back at the asshole that you used to be and not liking them very much… and then slowly realizing that sometime in the future you’re probably going to look back at the person you are right now and think the same things about them. The people you used to be stack up, over time, like beads on a necklace. And you’re stuck with them. You can’t go back and change things that’ve already happened. You can’t go back and make them different, you can’t force them to be anything other than what they are. And I just think… hating the person you used to be doesn’t do anything to change the things that you wish you could change. It’s just an elaborate way of punishing the person you are in this moment. You weren’t literally a lot of different people, over time. You’ve always been you, and you are constantly becoming. The problem with having a self that has been lots of different shapes over time is that you’re going to have to be nice them. The whole lot of them, and that includes the ones you can’t stand. Even when you can’t find it in yourself to be nice, always find a way to be kind. I wish I knew how. If I could choose a metric for measuring growth, it wouldn’t be shame or embarrassment or loathing for the person that I used to be. It just takes up so much time and energy and space that I wish I could be spending in other places. Spinning around in circles with your arms outstretched until you fall down onto the grass. Climbing over fences. Cooking food. Skinny dipping at three o’clock in the morning. Reading a book, or gaming, or writing, or watching videos that make you laugh, or making music again. Playing with friends, or maybe just laying on the floor and talking about anything for centuries. Things that are actually important. So measure growth in something else. Anything else. Cut me in half and count the rings, perhaps. Put my heart on a scale across from a feather. Throw me off of a tall building and, assuming that there is no air resistance, calculate how many units of laughter there are in one human soul. Count the number of beads on the necklace, and be kind. Hope it’s a good night.