A Painful Experience

I was going through my old documents to put into my portfolio and I feel this certain aversion to things I've written in the past. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this. Many people don't usually like to comment or see/read their old work, whether it's drawings, writings, or previous creations (of course the opposite is also true; we might treasure them for the nostalgia factor, that it was one of our first works, etc.). The feeling is like your parents showing your baby pictures to all your relatives, friends, and acquaintances. There are some things which I can't believe I did or wrote in a certain way, and you ultimately ask yourself "was this me?".

Of course looking back into the past has its benefits. It also shows how much we've grown, how much we've changed. If we're disappointed in a previous work of ours, it's only because we now know better.

But not everything in our past is to be apprehended either. There are moments when we're full of passion, full of zeal for things. Now, in certain respects, we've either lost hope, grown cynical, or don't exert as much effort as we used to (for various reasons).

Change has always been a two-way street. But it's usually about perception. Instead of focusing on things we dislike in our former lives, it's more comforting to remnisce about the positive things (but we shouldn't dwell on them too much either... they are, after all, in the past for a reason).