How often do y'all reflect on life and what do you think about when you do?

Yea pretty much.
one of the big things I think about is what would my life be like and who would I be if I hadn't moved so far away from my childhood friends. I think about that because I look at my old friends from social media and look at how they have changed compared to the life they lived and who they were. Sometimes I feel like the the life I have lived isn't what it should be, but then I think that maybe it would have been worse, but I'm glad I am where I am and I have the friends that I do (even if most are on the Internet).

 

When I space out I often contemplate the here and now and how it is fleeting. That I will never be 23 again. I will never experience my past experiences in the same way. Then I usually drift into thought about how big the universe is and how when I die, as an old old old lady with blue hair, that beyond my immediate family it won't have a huge impact on the world, or even the universe. It's not sad just crazy. and weird haha Crazy stuff man.

 

Maybe its because its my last semester in college, but I have been reflecting every hour of every day for the past few weeks.

 

Things look different, when viewed from a distance. What I mean by that is, the events of the past feel different when you're living them to how it does looking back in the present as the person you are now. We're never the same person from one minute to the next, it just becomes more noticeable how we've changed over time.

I've always been pretty analytical anyway, but in recent years have noticed that I tend to spend a lot of time reflecting on the past. There's a few reasons I think, for one as you get older there is more accumulated experience to reflect upon. Children don't usually reflect very much other than, say, what happened over the weekend, because they don't have a large or varied scope of memories to recall. Another reason in my case might be because much of my 20s have been largely uneventful due to circumstances, so the experiences I refer back to tend to be from my childhood and teens. Got to work with what you've got.

One interesting thing about reflecting is, as you grow older and your perspective changes things that once were viewed in a certain way can become something entirely different once you understand the influence they had on your life overall. There were times when I used to wish that I hadn't been exposed to certain things so young, or wished that some really horrible events had never happened. But now understanding the person I've become, and some of the potential pitfalls I've managed to avoid (for the most part) as a result of things I learned, I now see the bad things as valuable. Still not particularly pleasant, but useful.

 

Yes. Most days I'll think a little about the past and future. Plus, every few months I look back and think "wow, I was such an idiot." I think that's a sign of a progress.

 

I reflect quite a bit. I think about how my life isn't what I'd pictured it being when I was younger. I never thought I'd be single at 21 and had never dated anyone, or that I'd be so invested in the LGBT+ community, or that I'd be so confused on what career I want. But then I think that this is better than anything I imagined because it's real and I'm actually living it.

 

Especially now I kinda love looking back and seeing how much it really took to get to where I am. There's a real power in realizing the whole of your accomplishments, as in, seeing all the times where you fell and had to fight your way back up to get to where you are now. Even the worse moments in your life can take on a silver lining when you realize that you made it work for you, forced the negative to propel you forward.

 

I reflect on life, on the past, on at least a semi-weekly basis, if not multiple times every week.

I tend to think about the moments where I embarrassed myself, and I audibly moan. I think about the moments where I felt most scared and the moments when I cried the hardest. Unfortunately, the happy memories sometimes hurt the most because those moments are over now and lost forever. There's something infinitely depressing about that.

I'm really the sort who shouldn't look to the past as often as I do. I ought to be happier living in the moment.

 

Sometimes I'm haunted by failed social encounters/stupid mistakes/the time I forgot to do my homework in the third grade as I fall asleep at night. Does that count?

But seriously, I think about my life all the time. As long as you don't dwell on things you can't change, I think self reflection is important and very helpful in shaping future-you.

 

I feel the same! I moved states in 4th grade and I went from having a lot of friends at school and in my neighborhood to basically being a loner. I wonder if I'd be as socially inept if we had not moved. However, a lot would probably be different. Who knows what else!

 

I can't really remember a time where I WASN'T reflecting on life... Maybe I didn't when I was younger than 8. In a way, it's a factor in how I hate/have a pet peeve for when people say they're bored. Because whenever I'm "bored," I reflect on life. My mom calls me an "old soul."

Sometimes I think about my trans issues, sometimes about my friends, sometimes about my past and origin. Just depends.

 

I like to think that for the most part I can see myself unbiased-ly, so the majority of my reflection is just thinking about how I can improve as a person.

 

Yea exactly. I have a friend that used to be over weight and socially inept but really smart and now he's hot! and a social legend. The school he went to (that i would have gone to) had about 1000 students, the one I went to only had 450.

 

I think I always reflected on life, but since 2010 it's become a necessity. In the past few years I reflected every day, especially when I was walking home from university. Still I haven't gotten anything from this very tiring process, except that my consciousness is very disconnected from the world around me, and that makes it difficult for me to deal with people and accept the passage of time.

 

Every day.

 

Not that often. Over the last few months I've beginning doing the opposite, daydream about the future.