Oddly it comes as an improving discovery that you cannot relive the past. I say discovery because, like a gem in the dark, it is both unexpected and bountiful. It is unexpected because we assume everything will go on forever; bountiful because it remedies the past. The past for all its imagery was as clouded then as it is now by indecisiveness and uncertainty. Apart from the plain utility of acknowledging the impact of natural and normal change, it is too a reminder that happiness comes from within. Proving that is the challenge.

If you feel you must be convinced of the bounty of the proposition, it requires a comparison of what you had then and what you have now. I wager without concealment that then and now do not match. My conviction is without hesitation because life changes. Life never was – nor was it ever said to be – unchangeable. The paradox is that, to think otherwise enforces upon you an inconsistency approaching an even greater wistfulness or delusion. Certainly, if it were indeed possible, there would be no harm in trying to. But there isn’t.

The good news is you’re awake and alive! You have now as you did then the capacity to characterize and romanticize your present just as you did in the past. It’s who you are. By comparison wherever you are or wherever you were is not the same without you. They’re all just places, moments in time. So if you’re looking to make a difference you’re going to have to do it yourself.