How What the Younger Me Believed Began

The idea for What the Younger Me Believed began when I learned that the online platform where I stored my articles was shutting down a feature I used to save them. I needed to save my writing somewhere else. As I reread those pieces, I noticed how differently I saw some things then.

The beliefs and hopes in those articles belonged to a younger version of me. My experiences had changed how I understood those same ideas. I began to wonder what might happen if I let the two perspectives meet on the page.

At first, I thought I was simply revisiting a few old articles. But each one opened the door to another memory, question or realisation. Before long, sixteen personal reflections took shape.

The book became a conversation between the younger me, who imagined how life might unfold, and the older me, looking back at the dreams, detours and ordinary moments that shaped the life I have now. The reflections touch on purpose, companionship, identity, survival, curiosity, photography, kindness and the ways we keep becoming ourselves.

I didn’t write these pieces to suggest I have everything figured out. They come from lived experience and from trying to understand how time can change the meaning of what we once believed. Some hopes remain; others take a different shape. Even the parts of life that did not go as planned can hold meaning.

Although these stories are personal, I hope readers will find something familiar in them. We do not need to share the same age or life story to recognise the feeling of looking back and wondering how we became who we are. At different points in life, we may all find ourselves in conversation with the person we used to be.

That conversation is where What the Younger Me Believed began: with a few old articles, a changing perspective, and the realisation that a life can unfold differently than we imagined and still be worthy of reflection.