Nobody likes to be wrongly blamed for something another person has done. A lot of us have experienced the nauseating feeling of mistakenly being accused of something we didn’t do. It’s gut-wrenching and it could take away your appetite. Because of how awful it feels, most of us don’t do it to another person.
Yet, we do this to ourselves all the time. We blame ourselves for something someone else did. Most of us are guilty of that.
How could that be?
Easy. By forgetting the fact that the ‘you’ of today is a different person from the ‘you’ of yesterday. If we were built in such a way that our look would change according to how our mind changed, we would look totally different from the person we were even a few months ago. We could easily walk past our friends and family that we hadn’t seen for a while without them even recognizing us.
When you look at a photo of yourself as a toddler, do you still feel that it is really you? Or do you just acknowledge that it was you all that time ago, but no longer you? Do you feel a clear detachment from it? (If not, get worried!) And do you blame yourself for ignorant things you did back then? Why then are you judging yourself for things the less enlightened person did in the past? The things you did that you are regretting now, feeling guilty for and probably have paid for, would you do those again if the same situations came around? With what you know now, you wouldn’t. Then you have successfully evolved into a different person.
For example, in my world, the girl of 2016 used to stay up till very late whenever she could and didn’t get out of bed till 10 am. She also used to like different styles of clothes. But the girl of today goes to bed around 11 pm and gladly gets up around 6 am every day. She also wouldn’t dream of wearing the sort of clothes that Miss 2016 wore. Just by looking at these habits alone, how could that be the same person? Apart from inhabiting the same looking body, they are completely different people. The only connection they have is that the girl of today wouldn’t be around without the existence of Miss 2016. Miss Today wouldn’t like Miss Yesterday: she would see her as a less mentally developed girl and pass up the chance to be friends with her. So, it doesn’t make sense at all that the you of today is judging yourself for things the less mature person did.
I have only recently woken up to this fact. I’ve realized that the things I’m afraid of doing today are mostly the results of using the track record of a much more cowardly girl who used to come up with pathetic excuses for not facing her fears head on. Of course, it’s going to limit me if I use the history of a much weaker person as the determining factor for what I can achieve today. Right now I literally have no track record! There is no limit. But I’m grateful to that girl with her weaker character. Some time in the near future, the girl who will have mutated from today’s me will also look back and laugh at the silly things that used to bother the girl of 2019. Welcome to the world of constant evolution.
Who are you today? Are you still the same person as yesterday? You know very well what the answer is, so stop being judged for someone else’s faults!