I had lunch recently with a former colleague and friend. As often happens when you reconnect with someone who shared a particularly challenging chapter of your life, we spent some time revisiting the things we’d experienced together. Some were funny in hindsight. Others were frustrating. A few were genuinely painful.
Near the end of lunch, I found myself saying something I’ve believed for a long time: I don’t spend much energy wishing I could go back and change things. Not because I think I’ve made all the right decisions. I certainly haven’t. Not because everything that happened to me was fair, deserved, or necessary. And certainly not because I enjoyed all of it.
But because I like who I am today. And perhaps more importantly, I like who I’m becoming. And I have no way of knowing who I would be if I started changing the things that brought me here.
The Problem With Rewriting History
There’s something seductive about imagining that we could go back and change one decision. What if I’d taken that opportunity? What if I’d walked away sooner? What if I’d spoken up differently, trusted someone less, trusted myself more? We tend to imagine these alternative histories as though we could surgically remove a painful experience while leaving everything else untouched. But life doesn’t work that way.
Change one decision, and you change the circumstances surrounding the next one. You change the people you meet, the challenges you encounter, the lessons you learn, and perhaps even the values you develop. You don’t simply eliminate a bad experience. You potentially alter everything that came after it. And while it’s tempting to assume that the alternative would have been better, we can’t possibly know that. We only know the life we actually lived.
The Difference Between Regret and Reflection
I believe there is tremendous value in examining the past. I’ve made decisions I wouldn’t make again with the knowledge and perspective I have today. I’ve handled situations imperfectly. I’ve stayed in circumstances longer than I should have and probably walked away from others before I fully understood them. There are things I wish I’d said differently. Things I wish I’d understood sooner. People I wish I’d treated with more patience and kindness, including myself. But acknowledging those things isn’t the same as wanting to erase them.
Reflection asks, What can I learn from what happened? Regret, when we allow it to become a permanent residence rather than an occasional visitor, can trap us in a different question: What if I’d been someone else? And that isn’t a question I particularly want to spend my life answering. Because I don’t want to be someone else. I want to continue becoming a better version of me.
I Wouldn’t Choose the Path Again. But I Love Where It Led.
The twelve months spanning the second half of 2025 and first half of 2026 were among the most difficult of my professional life. I struggled with my direction, my confidence, my mental health, and my relationship with a leader whose approach and decisions often left me questioning where I belonged. It would be easy to make him the villain of the story. To revisit what he said, what he did, what he failed to do, and all the ways I believe things could have been handled differently. And some of those criticisms would be entirely fair. But I also have to take ownership of my own actions, beliefs, and choices. And I’ve come to realize that making someone else the central character in the story of my life gives them far more influence over it than I’m willing to surrender. Because look where I am today.
I left a role that, despite the years I’d invested in it, was no longer the right place for me. I gave myself permission to take a short sabbatical. To rest, to think, and to explore possibilities I might never have considered if I’d simply continued doing what I’d always done. I started a publishing company. My first book is approaching publication, and I’m already well into writing my second. And I joined a new organization in a role that has breathed life back into my professional world.
There’s an enormous amount of work ahead of me. I have new relationships to build, new challenges to navigate, and plenty to learn. But here’s something I haven’t been able to say in a very long time: I’m excited to get up and go to work every morning.
Not because the work will be easy. Not because every day will be wonderful. But because I’m energized by what I’m doing, challenged by what lies ahead, and genuinely excited about what might be possible. That doesn’t mean the difficult parts were worth it simply because things turned out well. It means I refused to let the difficult parts be the end of the story.
At the end of the day, did I love the path that brought me here? Not a chance. Am I thrilled about where I am on my journey? All day long.
We Are More Than Our Best Experiences
It’s easy to celebrate the experiences that made us stronger, wiser, more confident, or more successful. It’s harder to acknowledge that some of those qualities developed in circumstances we wouldn’t wish on anyone. Perhaps we learned to advocate for ourselves because someone else wouldn’t. Perhaps we developed independence because we couldn’t always rely on the people around us. Perhaps we learned the importance of compassion because we experienced its absence. That doesn’t mean those circumstances were gifts. It doesn’t mean the people who hurt us deserve credit for our growth. And it certainly doesn’t mean suffering is a prerequisite for becoming a person of substance.
We can’t always control what happens to us. But we often have more influence over what we do with those experiences than we realize. Perhaps, in our own way, we’re all capable of being alchemists. Taking the difficult, the disappointing, and even the painful experiences of our lives and transforming them into something of value. Not because those experiences were inherently valuable. Not because we needed to suffer to grow. But because, even when we can’t choose our circumstances, we can look for opportunities to shape what comes next.
The gold isn’t in what happened to us. It’s in what we choose to create from it.
Becoming Is Still in Progress
On the drive home from that lunch, I was listening to an album I’ve loved for years when a lyric from “Speak,” Queensrÿche, Operation: Mindcrime (1988) caught my attention. It speaks to the idea that becoming who we are requires giving something of ourselves along the way.
I’ve heard those words before, but that day they landed differently. Because that’s exactly what becoming requires. Our lives. Not just the moments we’re proud of, or the achievements we celebrate, or the relationships we cherish. All of it.
The wrong turns. The uncomfortable truths. The things we endured. The things we chose. The things we lost. The moments when we were courageous and the moments when we were anything but. Every year, every choice, every experience becomes part of the person who has arrived at today. And today isn’t the conclusion.
There are still things about myself I want to change. Habits I want to break. Perspectives I want to challenge. Skills I want to develop. Ways I want to grow. Liking who I am doesn’t mean believing I’m finished. It means I’ve reached a place where I can acknowledge my entire history without wishing it away.
You might be wondering: Couldn’t I have become the same person, or perhaps even a better version, without those painful experiences? Perhaps. I’ll never know. And that’s entirely the point.
Meanwhile, I appreciate the person standing here today while remaining curious about the person she’ll become tomorrow. And if that means accepting that some painful chapters will always be part of my story, I can live with that. Because I’ve given my life to become who I am.
And I rather like her.
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