In high school, I thought I was the oracle of my own future. A teenager, armed with a bad haircut and a cocky grin, convinced I had the whole map spread out in front of me. Straight road. Clear horizon. No detours.
Spoiler: that map was crap.
The truth is, I didn’t know squat. None of us did. We were just kids fumbling through locker hall politics and thinking a driver’s license was the key to the universe.
What I’ve learned since is this: you don’t stumble across some neatly wrapped version of yourself hiding behind a tree. You cobble it together. Trial by fire. Bad jobs, worse decisions, all the moves you thought would ruin you but somehow became the foundation for who you are now.
Every version of me felt permanent ... until it wasn’t. And then the ground shifted, and suddenly I was tearing down walls, putting up new ones, trying to figure out if I liked the view.
Growth isn’t a staircase. It’s a demolition derby. Half-built towers, blown-up blueprints, duct tape holding things together until you find a sturdier nail. And you know what? That’s the beauty of it.
If I could time-travel back to that puffed-up teenager, I wouldn’t hand him directions. I’d toss him a toolbox and say, “Go build. Screw it up. Tear it down. Build again.”
Because that’s what we’re all doing. Always. The job’s never done. And thank God for that.
You’re not a finished product. You’re the workshop.
what he didn't know.
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