You are everyone you have ever been, all at once, even if you’re completely different than you used to be.

I recently came to an uncomfortable realization.

There is no starting over.

There is no clean slate.

When I was younger, I believed that you could start from scratch. I believed that I had started from scratch at times. I was wrong, though.

You don’t want to leave your spouse, or quit your job, or go to school, or drop out of school because you’re afraid of starting over? Of starting from scratch? You literally cannot go back to the beginning.

Maybe you think this sounds like a bad thing. Like you can never change the path you’re on, or do anything different. But it’s exactly the opposite. You’re never going to take a turn in life then look around and realize there’s nothing behind you to support you. The life you’ve lived, the decisions you’ve made and people you’ve known are all still with you and within you — a vast reserve of inspiration, strength, validation.

If your road has been hard, look back and see all that you have gone through. All that you have survived. I don’t really believe that everything happens for a reason, but I do believe that everything can be a lesson. And all of those lessons stay with you (whether you follow them or not).

So no. You can’t start over.

You can, however, begin again. Place a marker in this point and time, plant a flag, and say this is where I’ve drawn the line. And you can move on. Begin again. Make a new choice, right now, without abandoning or condemning the choices you’ve made before. You don’t have to scorch the earth for new growth to occur.