I have always heard that personal evolution is a slow and gradual process, even painful, and that very often it is difficult to recognize the scope of the changes taking place in our lives. Yet it is important  to acknowledge our ongoing growth and even better, to see how to reward ourselves for the self-improvement we have accomplished.

I am reaching a stage in my life when there is more behind than ahead and I need to remind myself of the insights I have gained with time and how my life in the present differs from the experiences I lived through the past. Of course I had my share of success and failures as everybody else but all that has made me who I am now.

My attitudes, opinions, and values have marked me in different ways along my life and these differences can be ascribed, I think, to  one main thing: my willingness to accept that  I still have much to learn.

Today I need to give myself credit for these changes, to think about the goals I realized, the lives  I touched, the wisdom I acquired with time, and the level of enlightenment I attained over the past years. 
Knowing that  I am brighter, stronger, and more grounded than  I once  was allows me to look forward to the changes to come.