The Good Old Days
Why the hardest times are the ones we look back on the most fondly
I got to catch up with a college buddy recently. As our kids played together, we talked about life, what's next, and where we had been. A lot of the conversation reminded me of a previous article I had written called Intentional Imbalance, reminiscing about our younger times. I always loved the line from a Cross Canadian Ragweed song: "You are always 17 in your hometown," which still holds true most times I find myself in Lago Vista. Similarly, you are always 21 with your college friends. There's something about spending time with people from your past that puts you right back there.
We talk about “the good old days” like they were easy. But they weren’t. They were uncertain, hard, stressful at times. What makes them feel “good” now is that we know how they ended. The risk and uncertainty is gone. The outcomes are known.
Whatever you’re going through now might feel overwhelming. But one day, you’ll look back and think: That was nothing. I made it through. In fact, some of the hardest things I’ve done are the ones I now treasure most. Not because they were fun, but because I got through them. The struggle is the story.
These days, I have to seek out challenge. Comfort creeps in with security and lower risk tolerance. And yet, I still catch myself wondering, What’s next? Will it be hard? Almost certainly. Will it be worth it? Probably. And eventually, I’ll wonder why I was ever so stressed in the first place.
We crave certainty. We want the cheat code, the crystal ball, the guarantee that it’ll all work out. But if we had that? The challenge would disappear, and with it, the meaning of it all.
Every superhero story also has a villain. Both the superhero and villain have gone through some kind of challenge: lost parents, loved ones, or trauma. What sets the hero apart from the villain is how they respond to that pain. A villain seeks vengeance and tries to cause others to share in the same pain they have felt. A hero says, "I'm going to make sure no one else feels this same pain I have."
I recently stumbled into a rabbit hole of college acceptance videos, some kids breaking down in tears, others screaming with joy. I remembered my own letters. Back then, those moments felt like everything. At the time, they were.
But here’s the truth: the most important thing isn’t whether they got in or didn’t get in. It’s what they’ll do next. How will they respond to rejection? To success?
Will they blame that rejection letter for their failures for the rest of their life? Will the Ivy League student rest on their accomplishment of making it into a prestigious school, or will they continue to find challenges to help them grow? I meet plenty of students who forget they were once the kid screaming with joy to be exactly where they are now, even when it’s hard. The same goes for after college when you might land your dream job.
How we respond to those moments, good or bad, shapes who we become. That choice may be what determines whether we become the hero or the villain of our own story.
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