Why You Cringe at Your Past Self: 10 Signs You've Actually Grown

Because you changed. To feel cringe at something, you have to be far enough away to see it clearly. Here are ten signs the cringe is actually growth.

1. You found an old post and had to put the phone face down.
2. You'd now use a very different font, haircut and punctuation.
3. You once argued with total confidence about something you now barely care about.
4. You used to need everyone to like you, and now you only need most people to.
5. You would politely tell old you, "you can just say no."
6. You had a "deep" phase. It was three weeks. There was a playlist.
7. You re-read old texts and can see what you were actually trying to say.
8. You apologized to someone about something from years ago, and they didn't remember it.
9. You can laugh at it now, which you could not at the time.
10. You'd give old you a hug, a snack and a nap.

The twist: your friends may remember old you with a lot more fondness than you do.

The cringe usually fades faster when you add a little kindness. Ask what old you was actually trying to do. Usually it was something sweet: fit in, be funny, be seen. Fair goals.

Think of them as earlier seasons of your movie. Season one had questionable costumes and a lot of heart. Season three had a plot twist. You are on a later season now, and the cast has grown.

Every earlier version was doing their best with what they knew then. They made the choices that got you here. You can laugh at the haircut and still be grateful to the person who wore it.

This is also where the Long Game Hero and the Wise Mentor come from. You become the person who says "it works out" because you lived through the episode.

Try a small exercise: write one thing old you got right. The loyalty, the nerve to try, the way you cheered people on. Chances are it's still in there, just with a better haircut.

Probably, a little, someday. Turns out science agrees that we underrate our own change. In 2013, Jordi Quoidbach, Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson found that people at every age expect to change less in the future than they have changed in the past. It's called the end of history illusion.

So the version of you reading this feels finished, but isn't. That's not a worry. It's a relief. You are allowed to be a work in progress, and future you will probably laugh kindly at today's you, too.

Probably the good stuff: the laugh, the loyalty, the one time you showed up with snacks. Friends hold on to who you were with love, not a screenshot of your worst post.

You can ask them. The main character check has you rate yourself on sliders, like Show Stopper vs Spotlight Sharer. Friends rate you on the same traits, anonymously, and nothing unlocks until at least three have answered. Then you see your view and theirs side by side.

Send it to three friends who knew you back then and see who guesses right.