Would I Still Recognize Myself?

Photo by Jonathan Lim on Unsplash

A few days ago, someone suggested a sentence for me to write from:

“If I could have a do-over on just one thing, it’d be…”

I didn’t respond right away. Not because I didn’t like it, but because it felt like something I couldn’t answer quickly or lightly.

At first glance, it’s an easy thought to enter. Most of us can name a moment or ten without much effort. Like a decision, a relationship, or a season that went poorly. A past version of ourselves we wish we had handled differently. It’s tempting to imagine what life would look like if that thing were simply removed. Cleaner, smoother, less complicated.

I can feel that pull too.

There are moments in my past that were genuinely painful. Moments I would not choose again. Moments that, at the time, felt unnecessary, unfair, or simply exhausting. Like how I have treated friends. How I showed up, or failed to, during university. How I handled the breakup with my ex. My list could go on.

It wouldn’t be hard to describe how much easier certain things in life could have been. But every time I follow that thought for more than a few steps, I run into something that stops me.

Would I be the person I am today without those moments?

Would I still recognize myself.

There are parts of who I am now that only exist because I lived through misfortunes, hard times, and difficult choices. Times when I had to live with discomfort. Times when I didn’t get to skip ahead to clarity. Those experiences didn’t improve me in any clear or upward way. But they changed how I move through the world. And sometimes that change only came after I made the same mistake again.

That doesn’t mean I’m grateful for the pain itself, or that I believe suffering is a prerequisite for meaning. Everyone’s growth journey is different, and some of the lessons I learned through difficulty could have been taught more gently.

But I also can’t pretend that I could remove those experiences without removing something essential with them.

Have I earned the right to be who I am today because I lived through those moments?

I don’t know if “earned” is even the right word. It sounds almost too neat. Too transactional. As if endurance automatically grants wisdom. But it doesn’t.

There is a kind of credibility that comes from having stayed. From knowing, in your body, that you can live through difficulties you might once have thought would undo you.

If I imagine a version of my life where those moments never happened, I don’t see a better version of myself waiting there. I see someone else. Someone lighter and happier in certain ways, but also less grounded. Someone less careful with certainty and less patient with complexity.

So when I hear that sentence now, “If I could have a do-over on just one thing…”, I don’t rush to finish it. Not because there’s nothing I would change. But because I don’t believe I could erase those moments and still claim this life as mine.

I didn’t choose everything that shaped me. I could argue I didn’t deserve much of what shaped me. But I am responsible for how I choose to live with what remains.

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You can explore the rest of the essays in the Library