Borrowing Younger Eyes

We are remarkably good at remembering what we still want and surprisingly bad at remembering what we once wanted.

There is always something ahead of us. Another goal, another place, another opportunity, another version of ourselves we haven't quite become yet. The things we are reaching toward remain vivid because they are unfinished. They occupy our thoughts, shape our decisions, and remind us of the distance that still exists between where we are and where we hope to be.

But something strange happens when we finally get there.

The extraordinary becomes ordinary.

Something we once imagined from a distance becomes part of a Tuesday. A place we dreamed about visiting becomes somewhere we know our way around. A person we once couldn't imagine knowing becomes a name that casually appears on our phone. Something we practiced for years hoping we might someday become good enough to do becomes simply what we do. An opportunity we would have celebrated for weeks becomes another commitment on the calendar.

It isn't necessarily that we become ungrateful. I think our definition of normal simply changes.

The first time something happens, we stop and take it in. We photograph it. We call someone. We remember exactly how it felt. But eventually, if we are fortunate enough to experience it repeatedly, we stop noticing. What was once evidence that our lives were changing becomes the background against which we begin wanting something else.

I understand that instinct because I have spent much of my life looking forward. Ambition has been one of the great forces in my life. I like having something beyond me to move toward. I like knowing there are rooms I haven't entered, places I haven't seen, things I haven't built, and versions of myself I haven't met yet. I don't think I ever want to lose that.

But sometimes I wonder what it costs us to always be looking ahead. I wonder what would happen if the younger version of me could follow me around for a day.

Not so I could show him anything. I wouldn't prepare an itinerary or point toward the things I thought should impress him. I would simply let him watch. I wonder what he would notice.

Maybe he would hear the names of places that now appear casually in conversation and remember when they seemed impossibly far away. Maybe he would watch me walk into rooms that would once have intimidated me and wonder when I learned to feel comfortable there. Maybe he would see me doing something I once practiced alone for countless hours and find it strange that I could now do it without thinking about how badly I once wanted the opportunity.

Maybe he would notice the people.

The friendships I now consider normal. The people around the world I can call. The people who know me, believe in me, challenge me, trust me, love me. He might look at someone sitting across from me during an entirely ordinary meal and have no idea how I could possibly consider that moment ordinary.

And maybe he would notice things about me that I don't.

Perhaps he would see confidence where I still see uncertainty. Progress where I see unfinished work. Courage in decisions I now second-guess. He might be proud of things I currently consider inadequate simply because he remembers where they began.

Of course, there would probably be things he wouldn't understand. Dreams he thought I would have accomplished by now that remain unfinished. Questions he assumed adulthood would answer that I still carry. He might wonder why certain things mattered so much to me now, or why other things I once cared about had been left behind. And I think that matters too.

The purpose isn't to live a life that would impress the person we used to be. Our younger selves didn't know everything we know now. Some of their dreams were meant to change. Some definitions of success were meant to be abandoned. Growing up should change what we want.

Maybe the value is simply borrowing their eyes. Because their eyes haven't adapted to our lives yet. They would see things we no longer see.

There are probably parts of your life like that too. Things you once desperately hoped would happen that you haven't thought about in years because they did. People you once hoped would stay who are still sitting beside you. Abilities that once felt impossible that have become instinctive. Places that once existed only in photographs that you now know by memory. Problems you once believed you would never survive that barely enter your thoughts anymore.

Somewhere along the way, things we once wished for became things we forgot to notice were happening.

I don't find that realization sad. If anything, I find it beautiful. It means life has a way of absorbing the extraordinary until it feels like it belongs to us. But I don't want belonging to become blindness. I don't want gratitude to make me less ambitious. I want it to make me more awake.

I still want more from my life. There are things I want to accomplish that remain far away. There are places I want to go, people I want to meet, work I want to create, relationships I want to deepen, and parts of myself I am still trying to understand. I hope there is always something ahead of me that makes me curious enough to keep moving.

But I also don't want to spend my entire life staring toward the horizon only to someday realize that I repeatedly stood inside things I once dreamed about and barely noticed them.

Maybe ambition and appreciation were never opposites. Maybe we can be hungry for what is next and astonished by what is already here. Maybe we can recognize how far we still want to go without forgetting how far we have already come.

Every once in a while, perhaps we should borrow the eyes of someone who hasn't lived our life yet.

Not to convince ourselves that everything is perfect. Not to tell ourselves we should stop wanting more.

Just to look around again.

To notice the people. The places. The conversations. The abilities. The opportunities. The ordinary mornings and familiar faces that somewhere along the way stopped feeling extraordinary simply because they became ours.

And then ask ourselves…

Which parts of my ordinary life would the younger version of me find extraordinary?

Dino