There was a time when I wanted the right label.
The right type. The right box. The right IQ.
The right explanation that would finally explain who I was.
So I took the tests. I read the descriptions. I nodded along when parts fit and quietly ignored the parts that didn’t. For a while, the labels felt comforting. They gave shape to the fog.
But life kept happening.
And with every season lived, something shifted.
I noticed that the person I was at twenty could not be measured by the same questions at forty. The answers changed—not because I was inconsistent, but because I had grown. Travel does that. Loss does that. Love does that. And so, does sitting alone long enough to hear your own thoughts without interruption.
What once felt like personality turned out to be position—where I was standing in life at the time.
The mistake we make is assuming growth should look tidy. Linear. Predictable. As if becoming wiser means becoming more fixed.
In reality, the opposite is true.
The more experience you gather, the harder it becomes to stay contained by simple definitions. You integrate contradictions. You soften sharp edges. You develop empathy without losing clarity. You learn to hold questions instead of rushing toward answers.
This isn’t instability.
It’s depth.
Growth is not about discovering who you are once and for all.
It’s about learning how to move with who you are becoming.
That’s why rigid labels eventually feel uncomfortable. They freeze a moment that was never meant to be permanent. They describe a snapshot, not the unfolding story.
And maybe that’s the quiet truth beneath it all:
You are not here to be defined.
You are here to evolve.
To adapt.
To revise.
To surprise even yourself.
So if you no longer fit the version of yourself you once understood, that’s not a problem to solve.
That’s life working exactly as it should.
Growth is fluid.
And you are allowed to flow.
Click on the link above to read my latest exploration of life and its meaning.
