Let’s Start Over

I think most of us have wanted to start over at some point.

Maybe not all over again but a new momentum, a new direction, with all the past left behind. We want to pick up the pieces of ourselves lying on the floor and create something untouched out of them. We want a second chance, a third chance and a fourth chance to be someone new, someone different. But the very moment we’re about to step out of the door, we become uncertain about the timing of it all.

In our 20s, we feel like we’re not ready to leap.
In our 30s, we think it’s starting to get late.
In our 40s, we decide that it is already too late.
In our 50s, we hang our boots.

We keep assuming that ‘now’ is not the right time to start over because we’re too early or maybe, too late. We think that we’re out of sync with a world that seems to be running a marathon like a sprint; a world that makes us believe that there is no time to waste and if we’re not early in the game, we’ve already lost our way(?).

But a business started at 45 is still a business, 
A changed physique at 39 is still fitness,
And a Europe trip at 65 is still happiness.

Nobody cares about how long it took for us to get there. The moment we get there, everything becomes irrelevant. People start talking about our transformation from a chubby fella in our late 20s to a fit muscular idol in our late 30s. And they wish they had done the same because it’s already getting late for them. But between late and too late, there are 10 long years where one can start, quit and start over again multiple times!

It’s never too late until we say it’s too late.

So it’s okay to want to start again. It’s okay to want to leave our past behind and urge for a new beginning. It’s okay to want to change our minds about the things we were so sure about because we aren’t the same people anymore. Each one of us is living on a timeline of our own and we are neither ahead nor behind anyone else.

We are exactly where we are supposed to be.

Reinventing ourselves is a little like catching a bus of opportunities— we may think that once we miss it, it’s gone for good. But we forget that the bus keeps arriving every hour.

We can choose to slow down, to fasten our pace or to start over again. We’re allowed to decide when something is not meant for us and when something is. We keep our eyes in our own line, on what we need and what we deserve.

The beauty of starting over is that we can abandon all the expectations, beliefs and fears that have been eating away our happiness. We can sign our own damn letter of approval and begin. We are still going to age at the same rate regardless of what we do. 
So why not make the most of it, right?

But then, we don’t entirely start over again. 
No one can. 
It’s not a fresh start. There’s history. Life can be pictured to be a river where once it starts flowing, it doesn’t stop. We can’t correct a single second that has already passed, but what we can do is change our direction and choose where we want to go.

When we choose to start over again, we continue with a fresh perspective on our past experiences; A mental reset.

We tell ourselves, “I want this so bad and I’m going to keep trying over and over again”. It might take us longer than before to get to the same place we were, but who knows? 
We might like our new story better now.

So with our hands on our chests, let’s start(continue?) creating ourselves again.

To be a victor, we need to see the big picture. 
It’s not about winning or losing the small battles, but staying alive till the end of the war.

Hi. This is Harsh, the author of this blog.
I’m glad you read my article and hope that there was something that you could resonate with at a deeper level.

I write about things that I think I’d like to tell myself. I attempt to collate all my dispersed thoughts into a single flow of thought. With every article, I try to dig into a certain thought or feeling to make it more comprehensible.

If you enjoy reading my work, I hope you can check out my podcast(I call it my audio library of thoughts), Within 5 Minutes, where I try to bring these words to life in the most calming, peaceful way I can.

You can find this audio library in the common music streaming platforms — https://linktr.ee/hacchuu or you can check out the podcast section of this page

You can help me out by buying me a coffee! — https://www.buymeacoffee.com/hacchuu