You Are Not Who You Were Yesterday: Why, Because We’re Always Becoming

. RSS

“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
— Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

We often think of our personal story as fixed—written in ink. But the truth is, every time we reflect on the past, we rewrite part of it. We’re never telling the story the same way twice, because we’re never the same person telling it.

Our experiences change us. So do the people who enter our lives, the books we read, and the questions we begin to ask ourselves. In that sense, our identity is a living narrative, shaped by reflection, memory, and meaning—not just by facts.

This is something I’ve seen firsthand. Over the years, I’ve told my own life story in front of groups—sometimes sharing the same core events, but always with slight changes. What I chose to include, how I described it, what I emphasized—it all shifted as I grew and changed. As we gain new insights, our perspective evolves. And with it, the story we tell.

That quote from Lewis Carroll isn’t just whimsical—it’s deeply honest. We can’t return to who we were, because reflection moves us forward. When we revisit yesterday, we carry today’s wisdom with us.

This same idea appears in the poem People Come Into Your Life for a Reason. We often don’t understand the role someone played in our lives until we look back—sometimes years later—with new clarity. Retelling our story gives us the power to find new meaning in familiar moments.

And that’s the beauty of personal growth: we’re constantly being rewritten, not erased.

Along the way, the people we meet influence our journey in unexpected ways. Their impact often makes sense only in hindsight