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मैं चिड़िया बनना चाहती हूं …

If I Had a Time Machine, I Would Send Only One Message to My Past Self

Published by

shivashrigupta

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“If you could go back in time and send just one message to your younger self, what would you say?”

I have thought about this question more times than I can count.

And every time, I imagine the same scene.

A younger version of me is standing somewhere in the past—perhaps sitting beside a window, dreaming about the future, worrying about things that haven’t happened yet, trying desperately to become someone worthy of the life she wants.

She doesn’t know what is coming.

She doesn’t know which people will stay.

She doesn’t know which people will leave.

She doesn’t know that some dreams will come true—and some dreams will quietly change into something completely different.

She doesn’t know how many times she will have to begin again.

And if I had a time machine, I wouldn’t give her a detailed map of the future.

I wouldn’t tell her who to marry, which career to choose, which mistake to avoid, or which heartbreak to escape.

I’d give her just one message.

“You don’t have to have everything figured out. Keep going. You are becoming the person you once prayed to become.”

And then I’d let her live.

Because perhaps that is the most beautiful thing about life.

We cannot protect our younger selves from every storm.

We can only teach them that they are stronger than the storm.

The Strange Thing About Growing Up

When we are young, we think adulthood means having answers.

Where am I going?

What am I supposed to become?

Will I succeed?

Will I find love?

Will I be financially secure?

Will I make my parents proud?

Will I ever become the person I imagine in my head?

But then life happens.

And somewhere between our twenties and thirties, we discover a strange truth:

Nobody really has all the answers.

Some people are simply better at pretending they do.

We are all learning while walking.

Some of us are just walking with more confidence.

As the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard beautifully expressed:

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”

And perhaps that is why looking backward can be so painful.

Because now we understand things that our younger selves couldn’t possibly have known.

We understand why certain relationships ended.

Why certain opportunities didn’t work out.

Why certain failures were necessary.

Why some people weren’t meant to stay.

Why some dreams needed to die so that better ones could be born.

But our younger selves didn’t know any of this.

They were simply trying their best with the information they had.

And maybe…

that deserves forgiveness, not criticism.

To My Younger Self: I’m Sorry I Was So Hard on You

I wish I could go back and tell her:

You were not lazy.

You were learning.

You were not behind.

You were walking at your own pace.

You were not a failure because something didn’t work.

You were simply experiencing one chapter of your story.

You didn’t need to compare your chapter 5 with someone else’s chapter 20.

You didn’t need to become successful before you were allowed to feel proud.

You didn’t need everyone’s approval.

You didn’t need to prove your worth.

And most importantly—

You didn’t need to be perfect to deserve love.

How many years do we spend trying to become “good enough”?

Good enough for our parents.

Good enough for society.

Good enough for our careers.

Good enough for relationships.

Good enough for ourselves.

And somewhere along the way, we forget something incredibly important:

You were already worthy before you achieved anything.

Your achievements were never supposed to be the price of admission for your own self-respect.

I Would Tell Her About Failure

If I had that time machine, I would warn her about failure.

But not in the way she expects.

I wouldn’t say:

“Don’t fail.”

I’d say:

“You will fail. And you will survive.”

Some failures will break your confidence.

Some will make you question your intelligence.

Some will make you wonder whether you chose the wrong path.

And some will hurt so much that you’ll wish you could erase them from your memory.

But years later, you’ll look back and realize:

Failure wasn’t the opposite of your journey. It was part of it.

Think about the first time a child learns to walk.

They fall.

Again.

And again.

And again.

But nobody looks at a one-year-old falling and says,

“What a failure.”

We smile.

Because we understand something adults often forget:

Falling is part of learning.

So why do we become cruel to ourselves when we fall at 25?

At 30?

At 35?

Why do we suddenly believe that mistakes make us less worthy?

Perhaps adulthood doesn’t require fewer falls.

Perhaps it requires more compassion after falling.

I Would Tell Her Not to Chase Everyone

This might be the most important thing I’d tell her.

Stop chasing people who are comfortable losing you.

There will be people you love deeply.

You’ll give them time.

Energy.

Understanding.

Second chances.

Third chances.

Maybe even tenth chances.

And sometimes you’ll keep asking yourself:

“What more can I do to make them stay?”

My younger self…

Please listen carefully.

Love should not feel like an audition.

The right people won’t require you to continuously prove why you deserve a place in their life.

Some people will leave.

Let them.

Not every goodbye is a punishment.

Sometimes a goodbye is simply life making space.

“Some people are lessons, and some people are lifelong blessings.”

The wisdom is knowing which is which.

I Would Tell Her to Enjoy the Ordinary

This is perhaps the message I wish every young person could receive.

Don’t wait for the big day.

Don’t postpone happiness until:

You get the job.

You lose the weight.

You buy the house.

You get married.

You clear the exam.

You become financially independent.

You travel the world.

You become successful.

Because while you are waiting for the extraordinary,

life is quietly happening in the ordinary.

The morning sunlight entering your room.

Your mother’s voice from the kitchen.

A friend laughing at something completely stupid.

A cup of tea on a rainy afternoon.

Walking home after a long day.

The smell of old books.

A train journey.

A random conversation with a stranger.

A peaceful night when your mind finally becomes quiet.

These moments don’t announce themselves.

They don’t say:

“Remember me. This is one of the happiest days of your life.”

They simply happen.

And years later, we realize they were everything.

As Ferris Bueller famously said:

“Life moves pretty fast.”

Sometimes we need to stop long enough to actually notice that we’re living it.

I Would Tell Her That Time Is Not Her Enemy

We are terrified of time.

At 20, we think 25 is old.

At 25, we think 30 is old.

At 30, we wonder whether we are already late.

Late for success.

Late for love.

Late for career.

Late for dreams.

But who created this imaginary deadline?

Who decided that life must happen according to a timetable?

A tree doesn’t look at another tree and say:

“You’re taller than me. I’m behind.”

It simply grows.

Some flowers bloom in spring.

Some bloom in winter.

Their beauty doesn’t depend on blooming simultaneously.

Neither does yours.

Your life doesn’t have to resemble anyone else’s timeline.

Maybe your 30s will be your beginning.

Maybe your 40s will be your transformation.

Maybe your greatest work will come after everyone else has stopped expecting it.

You are not late.

You are alive.

And that is still a very powerful place to begin.

A Real-Life Example: The Person Who Thought It Was Too Late

Think about people who started again after everyone assumed their story was already written.

Vera Wang entered fashion relatively late compared with the conventional timeline and eventually became one of the world’s most recognized designers.

Colonel Harland Sanders built the KFC franchise after years of working in different professions.

J.K. Rowling experienced rejection and hardship before Harry Potter became a global phenomenon.

Their stories remind us of something simple:

A delayed beginning is still a beginning.

We often mistake “not yet” for “never.”

But life is rarely that simple.

Sometimes the seed spends years underground before anyone sees the tree.

I Would Tell Her to Travel More

Not necessarily to expensive places.

Just go.

Take the train.

Visit the small town.

Sit beside the sea.

Walk through an unfamiliar street.

Eat something you’ve never tried.

Talk to someone whose life is completely different from yours.

Travel teaches something classrooms often cannot:

Your world is not the whole world.

There are thousands of ways to live.

Thousands of definitions of success.

Thousands of stories happening simultaneously.

And suddenly, your problems become smaller—not because they don’t matter, but because your perspective becomes larger.

I Would Tell Her to Read More Books

Because sometimes the person who understands you best hasn’t even met you.

They may have lived 500 years ago.

They may have written a book.

And somehow, their words find you exactly when you need them.

A good book can become a conversation across centuries.

A mentor without a meeting.

A friend without a phone call.

A mirror without judgment.

If I could send my younger self a small library, I’d include books that teach courage, perspective, discipline and inner peace.

Because sometimes a book doesn’t change your life by giving you answers.

It changes your life by teaching you how to ask better questions.

I Would Tell Her to Take Care of Her Parents

Call them.

Sit with them.

Listen to the same stories again.

Ask them about their childhood.

Ask them what they wanted to become.

Ask them what they were afraid of when they were young.

Because one day, you will realize something heartbreaking:

Your parents were also someone’s younger selves.

They too had dreams.

They too made mistakes.

They too were trying to figure life out.

And perhaps they didn’t always know how to express love perfectly.

But they were learning too.

So while you still can—

sit beside them a little longer.

The world can wait.

I Would Tell Her to Take More Pictures

Not because every moment needs to be posted.

But because memory is fragile.

Take pictures of ordinary days.

Your messy room.

Your old shoes.

Your favorite tea cup.

Your friends laughing.

Your family sitting together.

The street you walk through every day.

The sunset you almost ignored.

Years later, these ordinary things become priceless.

You’ll look at a photograph and realize:

You didn’t know you were living a memory.

And Then I’d Tell Her the Most Important Thing

I’d hold her hand.

Look into her eyes.

And say:

“Please don’t spend your whole life trying to become someone else.”

The world will constantly tell you who you should be.

More successful.

More beautiful.

More productive.

More wealthy.

More popular.

More impressive.

But somewhere beneath all these expectations is a quieter question:

Who are you when nobody is watching?

Protect that person.

Your curiosity.

Your kindness.

Your weirdness.

Your dreams.

Your silence.

Your ability to wonder.

Your ability to begin again.

Don’t become so successful that you become unrecognizable to yourself.

If I Could Change One Thing…

Maybe I wouldn’t change anything.

Not the heartbreak.

Not the failure.

Not the wrong decisions.

Not the embarrassing moments.

Not the years that felt wasted.

Because changing one painful moment might change ten beautiful moments that came after it.

The heartbreak taught me depth.

Failure taught me humility.

Loneliness taught me self-companionship.

Uncertainty taught me patience.

Loss taught me gratitude.

And mistakes taught me wisdom.

Maybe the scars were not interruptions in the story.

Maybe they were the punctuation.

The Message I Would Actually Send

If the time machine gave me only 10 seconds…

If I couldn’t explain everything…

If I had to reduce years of wisdom into one message…

I wouldn’t send a warning.

I wouldn’t send a prediction.

I wouldn’t send a list of instructions.

I’d simply write:

“Dear younger me,

You are going to lose some things you thought you couldn’t live without.

You are going to meet people who will change you, and lose people who once felt like forever.

You will fail at things you desperately wanted to succeed at.

You will question yourself.

You will start again more than once.

And one day, you’ll look back and realize that none of it destroyed you.

It shaped you.

So stop being afraid of the future.

You don’t need to know how the story ends.

Just keep turning the pages.

And please—while you’re busy becoming who you’re meant to be, don’t forget to enjoy being who you are today.

You’ll miss her someday.”

Maybe That’s What a Time Machine Is Really For

We imagine that a time machine would allow us to change history.

But perhaps we don’t actually need one.

Because every time we forgive ourselves for something that happened years ago…

Every time we stop punishing ourselves for an old mistake…

Every time we understand why we made a decision with the knowledge we had back then…

we are sending kindness backward through time.

We cannot change what happened.

But we can change the meaning we give it.

And sometimes, that’s even more powerful.

Your past self doesn’t need your criticism.

She needs your compassion.

He needs your forgiveness.

They need to hear:

“You did the best you could with what you knew.”

And perhaps that is enough.

One Day, You Will Be Someone’s Past Self

There is one more thought that stays with me.

The person you are today will eventually become someone’s memory.

Your future self will look back at you exactly the way you look back at your younger self.

She will remember your worries.

Your dreams.

Your insecurities.

Your little victories.

Your mistakes.

Your courage.

So live in a way that makes your future self smile.

Not because you were perfect.

But because you were brave enough to keep going.

Final Thought

If I had a time machine, I wouldn’t go back to erase my past.

I’d go back just long enough to hug the younger me.

And I’d tell her:

“I’m proud of you.”

Not because she had succeeded.

Not because she had figured everything out.

Not because she had reached the destination.

But because she kept walking.

And perhaps that’s what we all need to hear sometimes.

Not:

“You should have done better.”

But:

“Look how far you’ve come.”

Because life isn’t a story about becoming perfect.

It’s a story about becoming more yourself.

So if you could send one message to your past self today…

Don’t send a warning.

Send love.

Because the person you were deserves it.

And the person you are becoming…

is waiting for it too.

📚 A Few Books for the Journey

If this question made you pause and look inward, these books can become beautiful companions for that journey:

Affiliate note: Some book links may be affiliate links. If you purchase through them, SHREEBIRD may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you.

🌿 SHREEBIRD

Read. Reflect. Rise.

Because sometimes, one beautiful thought can change the direction of a life.

Written by: SHIVASHRI GUPTAA
SHREEBIRD
Website: shreebird.wordpress.com

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