A Letter to my Little Self

My Little Self,

I write to you with care. My purpose is to shed a little light on your path, a journey that has seemed so dark lately. You feel as if you are walking in circles, on a road whose destination you cannot glimpse. And your vision, to complicate things, seems blurred. Inside, anxiety, disorientation, and the feeling that you are aging without reaching the goals you planned so carefully prevail. Meanwhile, everyone around you seems happy, successful, traveling the world with their perfect romantic partners, living lives that seem more like dreams… Stop that, Little Self, so I can illuminate your path.

You have been living as if your life constitutes all that exists in the universe, as if the colors you see, the shapes you touch, the tastes and smells you experience were all that matters. Little Self, I understand that you truly feel this, but is your experience the only possible one? Will it encompass all possible meanings? I must say that what you experience is only a small fraction of all that exists. And everything you consider “your experience,” each moment of joy and every instant of suffering you have ever felt, is merely a sample of what the (complex!) structure of reality can offer you.

You have lived each day according to what you think others expect of you, as if this were the only way to live. But I must remind you that this is only one possibility among many choices. Have you stopped to analyze the present moment, to feel its fleeting nature, and to understand the alternative paths you could take? I would say no… Immersed in this illusion, you forget that your time is finite. You ignore this, and thus waste the full potential of your existence, reducing yourself to living a life you did not choose. Remember, Little Self, that your experience of time is limited and may end at any moment. And with this awareness always in mind, take responsibility for your choices and follow a more authentic path.

This realization tends to cause anxiety, of course. But beyond simply avoiding it, why not transform it into a force that creates alternative meanings, enriching your existence? Little Self, do you realize that at this very moment you are in a spaceship traveling through space-time? A moment in which the observable universe is sending you all its light, without you needing to take a single step? Can you see that you do not need to build a spaceship to go anywhere, and that you can be wherever you want if you are able to see with sufficient clarity? The anxiety caused by the awareness of finitude brings restlessness, but that restlessness can be reinterpreted as an impulse toward a life that truly makes sense.

Although you feel boredom, as if you already knew everything and there is nothing left to discover, I must emphasize that all you know is no more than a grain of sand in a vast sea of mystery. Even time itself, which you believe you master so well, is far more than you imagine. Your birth and your death hold a much deeper significance in the sequence of frames that make up the film of your life, an epic movie embedded in the mysterious structure of reality.

Little Self, you are not alone. Your consciousness is not separate from the universe. Your eyes are the eyes of the cosmos, and your consciousness is part - just see - of the consciousness of the universe. For this reason, I encourage you to open your eyes and see all the beauty already revealed and all the mystery around you that is merely waiting to be discovered. Awake from this nightmare, Little Self, and take for yourself the power to be truly awake.

With care,

Your Big Self.