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Imagine this scenario: you are at your college reunion. It’s been over 5 years since you graduated. It feels nostalgic to be back on your campus; it's amazing to catch up with old pals and college mates. But somewhere in the middle of it all, you can’t help but feel like you don’t relate to the version of yourself that attended college here only a couple of years ago. 

The things you used to like or hate are no longer the same. Your interests from the past don’t quite engage you the same way they used to. All the things you used to worry about or be bothered by seem so trivial now. It slowly dawns on you—you've changed. It’s not an easy feeling to accept. 

But should it really surprise you? After all, they say change is the only constant, right? 

Still, it is a strange realization that a version of you that once felt so strongly cemented and definitive feels like a distant memory. It leaves you wondering why exactly you have changed so much. And if it is a bad thing that you have changed? 

Well, it might not always be the case. Feeling like you’ve changed from who you used to be is usually a good sign; it is a sign that you are evolving from who you used to be. This often happens as we grow older and experience more of what this world and life have to offer. 

For instance, you must have felt so strongly about a movie to the point that it even became part of your personality. You try watching it a couple of years later and find it to be a good movie still, but it doesn’t impact you as much as it used to. You realize then that maybe the stage in life you were in—all the peer pressure, trying to fit in at a new setting—when watching it for the first time might have had a bigger influence on your liking than the movie itself did. 

These self-realizations about what you like and don’t like, about things that matter to you, your value systems, and why you emote a certain way to certain experiences are all small but important steps towards becoming the next and better version of yourself. 

As Heraclitus is often associated with the idea,

“No man ever steps in the same river twice.”

Change is not just inevitable; it is essential.

Evolving, adapting, and becoming a newer version of yourself, while also strengthening your values and ideals, is a clear sign that you are changing, but for good. 

So, the next time there is an uneasy knot in your stomach about whether you are changing, maybe try seeing it in a different light. 

Maybe it isn’t unease. 

Maybe it is progress that you are making as an individual.