Sure, you turned out pretty good, but is there anything you wish had been different about your childhood? If you have kids, is there anything you wish were different for them?

Every time I think about this kind of question it brings up the tangled web of the consequences of living. Would you do anything over again? How could anyone answer this question honestly? Could you be anything other than what you are? I think, at least for me, the answer is no. Looking back on everything that I experienced, the good things, and the bad things, that all the things were needful. I love who I am and I don’t need someone outside of myself to remind me of that fact. I get a lot of flak for being who and what I am but I’m very fond of, and repeat to myself regularly one of the best quotes from Dr. Seuss. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” and I try to live with this great piece of wisdom every day of my life. It’s a figurative life preserver that keeps me afloat when I’m beset by banal trolls who would rather I just be flat, plain, and featureless.

So, back to childhood. Everything that happened in your past all gets added up and results in what you are now. What kind of life would it be if I doubted myself now? It would be fake, and it would do a disservice to all the things that have come before. It would shame all the good things and it would render meaningless all the suffering that I endured. I refuse to accept either of those conditions so in a way, through my own convoluted logic I am who I am and I can’t be anything else. As if anyone could go back in time and change things, which you can’t, so it’s academic. This sort of thing, musing about changing your past is the height of uselessness. Pondering the impossible – and I would say changing your past is impossible, is a waste of effort, time, and thinking. For all the good that happened, I am happy for it. For all the bad that happened, I am happy for that as well. It’s only in enduring suffering and outlasting it that you defeat it and that singular win, defeating suffering, makes the rewards that much sweeter. So live in the now, bless and release the past, and try to do your best – because:

Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.