Now, in the future.

This is a reminder to Future Me. This is a reminder to pay attention. This is a reminder to stay on your toes, because you'll never really know My Future Kids. This is a reminder to not get cocky. This is a reminder that My Future Kids will change faster than you can keep up with. This is a reminder to remember. Remember the person you were a few years ago? Keep that vague sense of embarrassment in mind when you bring up the person Child was a few years ago. Remember that Child cannot fix the mistake they made a year ago. Remember that Child is a new person now. Remember that they may or may not have learned from their mistakes and who they were then does not always dictate who they are now.
What I'm saying, Future Me, is that the goldfish incident when they were five does not determine their ability to take care of pets forever more. No matter how recently it feels to you, it happened much longer ago for them.
I have a theory about time in the context of one's life. Maybe we shouldn't think of it as an absolute length but rather as a fraction. Every year seems to go by a little faster, just as every years becomes a slightly smaller fraction of my life as I add more years.
I have another theory. Time we experience is inversely proportional to how much we are doing. As a corollary, time retrospectively is proportional to how much we do.
Maybe it's a combination of these. The point is that however much time you think has passed, Future Me, is not the same amount of time that some else thinks has passed. The point is that if you don't pay attention, My Future Kids will reinvent themselves three times before you think anything has happened.