The Death of Who You Could’ve Been
Maybe it really is too late
To the deep thinkers,
Welcome to the Deep Thinkers Newsletter: A collection of essays dedicated to going beyond the surface.
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There is no funeral for the person you never became. No condolences for the dreams that slipped through your fingers. And yet, the grief is real. It's very very real, and not enough people talk about it.
When we’re children, the potential of who we can become feels boundless. We can be anyone, and we have all the time in the world. In those early years, our identity was fluid, shaped more by imagination than expectation. We simply lived.
Setbacks in our youth felt inconsequential, mere footnotes in an unfolding story. A wrong turn here, a misstep there—most could be brushed off, learned from, or forgotten.
But as we grow older, every choice begins to feel more permanent. Mistakes are no longer fleeting inconveniences; they carve scars that cannot be hidden, reminders of choices we can’t take back.
Sometimes, the things that haunt us most aren’t what we did wrong, but what we never did. The dreams we abandoned too soon. The opportunities we were too afraid to seize. Over time, the gap between who we are and who we could have been stretches wider, until it feels like a chasm we can never cross.
This sorrow has a name—ambiguous grief. It lingers and compounds, giving way to an even heavier weight: the fear that the time for change has already passed. This growing unease solidifies into something else entirely—alazia.
Alazia is the quiet dread that whispers: What if I’ve missed my chance? What if I’m too old, too far behind, too stuck in my ways to ever become the person I once dreamed of becoming?
Ambiguous grief is not mourning what was, but what never came to be. It is the aching realization that something you once believed was inevitable—a dream, an experience, a version of yourself—will never come to pass.
At some point, you saw your future unfolding in a certain way, only to reach a moment of painful clarity: It’s never going to happen for me.
Like tangible grief, ambiguous grief comes in waves—appearing without warning. Lingering. Waiting.
But unlike tangible grief, the world rarely acknowledges ambiguous grief. There is no funeral for the person you never became, no condolences for the dreams that slipped away. And in a way, I get it. Even on an individual level, it’s hard to explain how this kind of grief works.
How do you grieve something that never existed? How can we expect others to empathize with distress over something that, in reality, was never ours?
Still, the pain is real. Ask the gifted athlete who spent their whole life training, believing they would play college ball—maybe even go pro—only to suffer an injury that changed everything. Their dream didn’t just fade; it was taken from them.
And in its place is a version of themselves they never expected to be, forced to navigate a life they never imagined living.
I once saw myself as an athlete, a chef, a college student living the ‘traditional’ experience. But one by one, those versions of me slipped away, replaced by a reality I hadn’t prepared for.
Ambiguous grief lingers in the spaces between what is and what could have been. It is not always loud or overwhelming, but it is persistent. It feels like mourning the death of an alternate version of yourself—the one who existed in dreams, in plans, in quiet moments of certainty about the future.
It is the ache of parallel possibilities slipping through your fingers, the slow realization that some doors will never open, no matter how hard you knock.
It may seem naive now, but could anyone blame you for being young and believing that a specific version of your future was possible? Hope is not just a wishful indulgence; it is the foundation upon which we build our lives.
And when that foundation cracks, the grief that follows is not just for what was lost, but for the person you once were—the one who believed, without question, that things would turn out differently.
Too late to change?
We think we have all the time in the world during adolescence and early adulthood. The future feels limitless, as though the person we want to become is simply waiting for us at the right moment.
But before we know it, we wonder where the years have gone and why our dreams never materialized. And then comes the question that lingers in the quiet moments: Do I have one, or even more, positive and drastic change left in me?
The existential dread creeps in, accompanied by the fear that it might be too late to become the person we once envisioned.
This is alazia—the fear, and sometimes the reluctant acceptance, that some dreams must be buried. Not just the goals and aspirations we once had, but also the vision of the person we thought we would become.
The term alazia was coined by John Koenig, whose talent for capturing indescribable emotions with the perfect word is, for lack of a better term, genius.
On his website, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, the entry for alazia reads:
When you were born, you could have been anybody. So quick and malleable, your parents could look at your face and see a future president. They tried to mold you as you grew, but they could only work with what they had. And when their tools stopped working, they gradually handed them off to you, asking, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Some of us are given more help than others, but ultimately we are all ushered out into the world and expected to "figure it out." And though some do, life rarely turns out the way we saw it in our heads when we were kids or adolescents.
And the longer we live, the harder it becomes to make deep and transformative changes.
If ambiguous grief is the mourning of lost potential, then alazia is the weight that keeps us from moving forward. It convinces us that the door to change has closed and that the path we didn’t take is no longer an option.
I will be 32 years old this year—not too old, but with enough years under my belt for existential questions to burrow deep in my mind.
There is much I still want to do, to accomplish, to see—and yet, I feel the burden of time lost. I feel so stuck in my ways sometimes. When I was in my twenties, I told myself things would be different in my thirties.
And now that I'm in my thirties? Well, I feel that in many ways it might be too late for me to change.
Sure, there are things I have changed about myself throughout the years—habits, sense of style, beliefs. But what of my personality? I feel rigid and unbendable, as if the core of who I am has already been set in stone, leaving little room for transformation.
I think about the moments I have hesitated, the chances I have let slip away, and how I have stayed the same despite wanting so badly to grow. Is change even possible, or am I doomed to be a fixed version of myself, repeating the same patterns, making the same mistakes?
And yet, deep down, a small part of me wonders—if I were truly incapable of change, would I even be asking these questions at all?
As we grapple with the question of change—whether it's even possible or if we are bound by some invisible force—Soren Kierkegaard’s words bring us face to face with the painful tension of longing for a future that may never be:
The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly one you can never have.
And so, if ambiguous grief is the mourning of lost potential, and alazia is the fear that it’s too late to change, then what remains is a choice: to lament indefinitely or to embrace the imperfect path we've taken.
Beauty in the imperfections
Coming to terms with the passage of time and the unexpected turns our lives take can be difficult. We often start out believing we have endless opportunities to change course, chase our dreams, and build the life we want. But then we take jobs, enter relationships, and settle in places we assume are temporary—only to blink and realize they’ve turned into a career, a hollow marriage, and a life in a city we despise.
The toxic positivity pushed onto us by those proclaiming, “It’s never too late!” is often misleading. Sometimes, it is too late. Sometimes, we do miss certain opportunities. If we can’t acknowledge this and lay those dreams to rest, the feelings remain trapped inside us, unresolved and unexpressed.
Yet, while we may mourn the roads not taken, we must also recognize that our paths—however imperfect—shape who we are. Dwelling on what could have been can stifle creative expression, but embracing the chips and cracks we’ve accumulated allows us to write a story uniquely our own.
But even as we learn to embrace our own imperfect narratives, the past never fully fades. The dreams we once held don’t simply vanish; they become echoes in our minds, surfacing in quiet moments of reflection. And in those moments, having someone to walk alongside us—to remind us why we keep moving forward—can make all the difference.
We all need people like that in our lives. My girlfriend has been that person for me. And even with a trusted confidant by our side, helping us along the way, the question remains: how do we grieve for the versions of ourselves we pictured in our minds when we were kids, teenagers, or young adults?
The path unique to you
When I look back at the past and think of all the time I squandered in error and idleness, lacking the knowledge I needed to live; when I think of how I sinned against my heart and my soul, then my heart bleeds. Life is a gift, life is happiness … Every minute could have been an eternity of happiness! If youth only knew. Now my life will change, now I will be reborn.
— Fyodor Dostoevsky
The version of us who tours the world with their bandmates, the one who becomes a veterinarian, or the one who writes successful novels—where do they go? Do our bodies or spirits keep track of these untaken paths, the ones we never even made a minor effort to walk? Perhaps they are lost to us, yet still, they linger, tugging at our psyche, reminding us of what could have been.
I believe that when we resist the tug—whether through avoidance, denial, or toxic positivity—that is where the true crisis happens.
There is no magic formula for erasing the feeling of alazia—no instant relief for ambiguous grief. But I believe that time, expression, and gratitude can serve as a balm for the pain. Even so, some scars remain, and some losses stay with us until the very end. Like anyone whose life has taken unexpected turns, I know how difficult it can be to feel grateful when it seems like you can’t catch a break. But gratitude and acceptance are not just ideals—they are necessities.
Embracing gratitude for where I am now and the path I continue to walk helps soften the weight of what was left behind.
In that acceptance, we find solace in the things we lost but never had. Letting go of the hold our so-called wasted potential has over us uncovers something even more valuable—the freedom to embrace who we are, right here, right now.
Too late or right on time?
Returning to the idea that it’s too late to change, I feel that fear every day. The older I get, the more it intensifies. And while it’s true that there are some things I must move on from, I can’t help but hold on to a glimmer of optimism.
Alazia is simply a term to describe the fear itself. It doesn’t mean change is impossible—that is for each of us to discover on our own. We owe it to ourselves to sit with our dreams, reflect on the people we want to become, and ask: What can still change, and what must be left behind? For some, a deep transformation is already underway—we just don’t see how profound the change is yet.
To quote John Koenig once more:
Maybe it’s too late for you to change who you are. Or maybe you’re just entering a new phase, undergoing a change so profound that even your understanding of change is becoming unrecognizable. Maybe now is the time to stress-test your own assumptions about yourself, stripping away all the flourishes and ornaments that you don’t really need, honing yourself down to the core of who you are. And even if it’s true that you’re no longer flexible enough to be anybody, you might be getting strong enough to finally be yourself.
The cynic in me reads the first sentence and nods in agreement. But the rest? The rest gives me goosebumps. Because who knows what else I have in store? Who knows what else you have in store? Perhaps transformation is not about becoming someone new, but about uncovering who we’ve been all along. Maybe we’re not too late—we’re simply arriving right on time.
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What I’m into this week:
We all need to tell our story and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to death. We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find out who we are.
— Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth
Much love,
- Jon ♾️
At 32, I gave up on a dream I accepted as unrealistic and embarked on two others that ultimately brought me great satisfaction in life. I never looked back. Until I retired and realized I'd done everything I'd wanted to do except that one thing. And I thought, you know, what if I tried that old thing again but with less need? What if I just did it for the heck of it without having to succeed or satisfy the ambitions of a 16-year-old me? (I really recommend Sarah Lewis’s The Rise.) The minute I began pursuing my own level of mastery in the shadows, the part of me who'd once “dreamed of more” made peace with who I am. And when, in November of 2023, I almost died, I realized I had zero regrets about anything I hadn't done because I Had Done It -- just quietly, and with no applause. It was lovely. Every night, I say to myself now, “I did it. I did, just not exactly as I pictured, but yeah.” In your 30s and 40s and 50s, sometimes the things you leave undone need to be dropped so they can come ‘round again when you're ready to embrace them in ways only the older you can relish. Be willing to be surprised.
This hit so very hard, cut so intensely deep, I almost wept as I read it. What you put so eloquently into words is the exact thing I've been experiencing for the past few years, since I turned 40. A divorce left me devastated- I realized how much time I'd wasted (16 years) being unhappy and not reaching my personal goals. I can never get the time back. Having kids too young and not finishing college. Never "making it" as a musician or academic or writer. It's been hard to bear. A sadness lingers over all the losses. And my most recent attempt at a career and education hangs by a thread due to politics. I've been feeling the weight of it crushing me lately.
But as I read through to the end of your piece, I thought, perhaps, maybe I can just accept myself as I am whether I ever accomplish my goals or not.
You have truly made me consider what I value in life and in myself. Thank you.