Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes

by William Bridges

3. Imagine that you are really old. Let’s say you’re ninety. From that time in the future, you can look back on yourself now. Then you’ll know what was really going on now and even how things turned out. You may also know how they might have turned out if you had taken a different path. From that vantage point, was this present point in your life a time when it was a good idea to keep on in the same direction, or was it a time that cried out for change? And if the latter, what kind of change was called for? Looking back from age ninety, did you notice signs that pointed to the direction you ought to have taken at this point in your life, signs that may have been hard to see but that were there? And looking back from that future, what feelings do you have about your situation now? At ninety, are you sympathetic with your current confusion or impatient with your current blindness? At ninety, are you pleased by how things turned out or troubled by the nagging feeling that you missed a turn in the road back here where you’re standing now? Do you, at ninety, wish you could have encouraged your present self to take more risks? Or do you wish you could have made the present you wake up and see all that you already possessed and not risk it for something that was just ego candy?