What I Wish My Younger Self Had Been Told

By Lara Bowen

My grandparents kept a framed copy of Desiderata in their downstairs loo. It was impossible to avoid. I read it so often I memorised it long before I truly understood its wisdom. It became my North Star – a lesson, long before life tested me, that gentleness, courage, and perspective matter.

If I could sit beside my younger self, I would underline the guidance of this text with these notes from our life experience:

There is no single right way. No tidy blueprint. No perfect path. Your life won’t be one epic painting but a tapestry, a collage, a photo album of stories – luminous, unfinished, sometimes messy, sometimes radiant. All of them will matter. Some will end abruptly. Some will change you forever. None will be wasted. Treat each moment with quiet attention, and let the small, steady choices shape your journey – “go placidly amid the noise and haste.”

You will reinvent yourself more times than you expect. Don’t cling to a version of yourself just because you invested time in her. Beginning again is not a collapse. It is courage. We are not mayflies – here and gone in an instant. We are creatures of seasons, shedding skins, returning in new forms. Expect reinvention, and meet each version of yourself with kindness.

Confidence will not arrive like lightning. It grows because you act, because you speak while shaking, because you say yes before you feel ready. Courage isn’t the absence of fear – it’s movement despite it. You are stronger than you know, but be gentle with yourself along the way.

When people hurt you, because they will, pause before you make their behaviour about you. Most of the time, they are not acting to you, but from themselves. You get to choose whether you carry it, or set it down and walk forward unburdened. This is a life-long lesson.

Remember this: you do not stand alone. You carry the women who came before you – ancestors, mothers, grandmothers, the quiet builders and bold rebels. Their courage lives in your body. You are their continuation and evolution. Embrace this reality.

Build your castle. Trust your instincts – your gut often knows before logic catches up. Stay awake to synchronicity. When the world offers a ‘what a coincidence’ moment, recognise it for what it is: a sign you are walking your right path and that “the Universe is unfolding as it should.”

But most importantly: “With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”

— Max Ehrmann, Desiderata (1927)