There are some things you understood better when you were younger. Things like the privileges of adulthood, employment, schooling, marriage, parenting, etc. Or at least you understood aspects of those things better, mainly because you were on the outside looking in. Everything was magical. It was all behind a glass door and locked tight.

After becoming an adult, an employee, a student, a spouse, a parent, etc., it’s important to access those younger insights so that you don’t become unimpressed by the glories of life in God’s universe. You know. Just kinda being used to the way things are. You need to remember how spectacular your situation is.

You can access these insights in two ways:

1. Personal relics

These would include things like journals, pictures, home videos, or memories. The only downside to these is that you can’t interact with them and ask them questions. They don’t respond. They just exist as carryovers from a day long gone.

2. Other people in anticipatory situations

What I mean by this is people who are now in a state of life you used to be in. A child. An unmarried friend. A childless couple. They aren’t you, granted, but you can interact with them and ask them questions. You can hear the thrill in their voice as they talk about looking forward to where you are now.

Ideally, you can use both of these approaches so that each one’s deficits are supplemented. The point of it all is to make you remember that your current state is not as ho-hum as it sometimes appears.

After all, you once knew better.