There comes a turning point in your life when the shift in your personality is noticeable. It could be from your first job, heartbreak, apartment, or mental breakdown, but suddenly your timeline is divided into before and after. You suddenly know so much more about yourself and the world. But then it’s hard to not want to return to when you were ignorant.

Before you could pretend that everything was going to be okay; now you know how it feels when everything’s not. It’s easy to miss the person you were before you were forced to grow up. But there’s a reason why you’re not that person anymore.

The more experiences you have, the more you get to know yourself. Once that pivotal moment happens, your thought process changes. It’s funny how easy it is to spot the people who’ve crossed that bridge. I don’t like saying that they haven’t lived, but it’s apparent in the way people speak and how they act if they’ve been through something monumental. Even still, your thoughts become more organized, and you’re now very aware of everything.

To feel the full force of your experiences, you have to have lived through the best and worst case scenarios. In other words, when you have a particularly nice day, it becomes even better when compared to some of your worst days. Because once you hit rock bottom, you start to appreciate everything above it a lot more. In order to have revelations about the future or what you want at the moment, there has to be a crisis or event to spark your existentialism.

Life doesn’t always have to be dramatic. You can hear a friend talking about their plans and start to panic, or you can have a really great class that’s not a part of your major and start having second thoughts. Regardless of the scenario, we are constantly rebuilding our image through every conversation we have. Becoming more introspective is good, because you can predict how you’ll react to situations instead of just going in blind. However, it’s easy to miss the days when you just existed and didn’t have to think so much.

While it may seem contradictory, being young and carefree isn’t reserved for children. You can take your experiences and put them towards being an open-minded and relaxed person. You can choose to see the best in every bad day and everyone you meet in spite of what the world has presented you with. Change is scary and necessary, but it's not binding. You can change in ways that make you comfortable without losing the part of yourself that made you who you are today.