In this episode: I catch up a bit with my ex (who remembers the version of me from 5 years ago) which leads me to realize just how much I've changed... My previous self is almost unrecognizable... Enjoy ☺️ ❤️ If you can relate to me, hit *SUBSCRIBE* and turn notifications (🔔) on to get notified first when new videos go live!
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On Sunday, I went to go work at a café, and I ran into my ex-girlfriend. We dated about five years ago, she was my first girlfriend here in Medellín, Colombia. I haven't seen her in a long time.
Anyway, long story short, I ran into her at Starbucks on Sunday. We talked for a couple of hours, we ended up getting some food afterward.
Let me give this a little bit more context and why I think this is interesting:
I've changed completely over the last 5 years. As far as what she remembers of me, it's almost like a time capsule because we haven't talked at all. Her memory of me, my memory of her is from 5 years ago.
When we first started dating, I just started getting into salsa. I remember, the night that I asked her to go out with me, we went to this place called Son Havana. My idea was that I was s going to blow her away with these few salsa moves that I had learned.
It was almost embarrassing how low my level of salsa was.
Now, fast forward five years, we go out, and I can actually dance salsa, and it's kind of cool.
I'm a completely different person than I was five years ago.
It was just really interesting talking to her, remembering what I was like because I truly don't remember.
It feels like a lifetime ago.
When you look in the mirror every day, change is a very gradual thing.
But, when you're talking to someone that just has this version of you from five years ago in their head, that's the last thing they remember. You can understand very quickly just how much you've changed.
And for me, the change has been enormous.
I'm more confident, but the confidence is not something that I created, it's something that I have earned from doing difficult things.
Lots of things that are difficult, right?
I've come to understand what it is that will bring me fulfillment. What will bring me fulfillment is doing things with the desire to do them for others.
Having some sort of self-consciousness allowed me to course-correct along the way. I've been able to find the beauty in each of these individual things, each of these individual pursuits.
One of the interesting things I've come to realize in talking to Karen so much over the last couple of days was just realizing that the person that I was and better understand the person that I've grown into.
Because before Karen I would always lie.
Every girlfriend always asks if you've ever cheated, and my answer to that previously was always "no" and I would believe it.
When I look at the previous version of myself, and I look at the current version of myself, probably the most important thing that helped me grow into the person I desire to become was to always be honest.
Being honest has and always will be in my best interest, even if the immediate result of being honest is not good.
The first couple of months after breaking up with Karen were brutal for me because she had started seeing someone else,
Should I have told her the truth? Should I have lied? Why did I tell her the truth?,
There was this idea that maybe I should have lied, and then to just treat her better afterward.
It's just always been so important for me to be honest. It was important for me to lose her. And then to experience that pain and the pain of seeing her with someone else, and realizing that I had just lost a really good girl.
How can you live an honest life if you're lying in any way?
A lie to someone else is also a lie to yourself.
I think lies are, pretty much in any context, what prevents us from becoming more conscious of who we are.
It's a mirror, right?
If that's the way that you're interacting with people, that also reflects into your inside. That is how it becomes easy for us to perceive that we are something that we are not. To lie to ourselves about who we are. And even what we aspire to be.
Being as honest as we possibly can not only is it difficult, but it's just so necessary, and it's something you almost have to practice.
What for me is the most interesting takeaway from all of this catching up with Karen is that so much has happened, I've changed so much, and I think the one area that I've gotten better at more than anywhere else, is being able to just be honest.
It has allowed me to reflect that same level of honesty with how I view and treat myself.
Being honest takes practice.
Becoming my best version is only possible if I am honest with myself.
Anyway, I am off to Europe to climb Mont Blanc.
Wish me luck? I don't need it though.
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