One of my close friends recently tweeted something that really made me question and think about the ways I perceive situations and understanding people (and myself) have changed as I’ve gotten older. The tweet was something along the lines of, “What would your childhood self say about the way you are living your life now?”
Why did this quote hit me so hard?
To be quite honest, it may have been a bit of procrastination that inspired me to internally process the path that life has led me down, but it also was an incredible moment of self-reflection that I seldom take the time to do. It took me back on a journey of my life, made me re-experience some emotions and memories that I didn’t necessarily want to remember, and overall made me feel so incredibly grateful for my past and the way it has been able to transform me into the person I am today.
So…how do we change from having a child’s mentality and what does that mean in terms of the ways in which we choose to make life decisions and understand ourselves?
This change in mentality does not always happen at the same time for everyone. Some may experience intellectual growth at a very early age while others may continue to embody a child-like mentality throughout the course of their lifetime.
Was it the result of a personal tragedy that acted as a catalyst for this change in persona? Or was it a time in which a person was able to find himself/herself, either through passion, experience, travel, or faith? Personally, I do not think having one or the other is necessarily a wrong or bad thing, as there are benefits of both in different lights and circumstances.
I think what I miss most about my “childhood heart” is that feeling of complete trust and innocence, before the world begins to crush your heart, before the feelings of distrust and misfortune added a new filter onto your outlook of life. It’s inevitable; we meet a person who changes our lives and leaves without warning or reason. We experience disappointments in things that we wanted for so long. It’s something easier to understand and something that is more often experienced as one grows.
As a child, your dreams haven’t been crushed yet, and you still have so many years to develop into a person that would make yourself proud. You don’t have to understand a world where racism, sexism, money, poverty, misfortune, war, corruption, and bigotry exist.
However, with the more mature mindset that I have now, I am able to understand and appreciate the elements in my life to a much deeper extent. What I hope you, my fellow peers here at Notre Dame, understand is that no matter the pain and heartbreak you have experienced in the past, you have a lot to appreciate today.
We are so lucky to have the Dome to light our ways home every night. We are blessed to live in a community that supports and loves each other on a level that could never be defined as being superficial. We got to experience warm weather, an incredibly beautiful fall, and the joy of the first snowfall all as one. Being an adult is being able to appreciate the good when it comes, and take the lessons from the bad to turn them into a positive life experience.
So, what would my childhood self say about the way I am living my life? I think baby Chloe would be proud of the person I’ve become. Although I’m not that sweet little angel I was when I was a young girl (life forces you to develop a thick skin), I feel as though I’ve become a person who appreciates what life has to offer in the short amount of time that we are here and I hope that if you look back, that you find the same answers that I did.
Follow the HCND Pinterest account, and remember to keep posted with HCND on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook!