Would You Apologise to Your Younger Self ?
Has there been a time when you’ve felt that you’ve let down your younger self ?
The dreams that you once very innocently dreamed about realising in life are still lingering dreams that you haven’t acted upon?
Do you have words choked in your throat that you can’t spill, because the one you want to say them to, now lives in the past ? Or maybe doesn’t even exist anymore?
Mumford & Sons’ Grammy Nominated “Little Lion Man” is an ode to what apologising to your younger self looks like.
Let’s dive right in.
Weep for yourself, my man
You’ll never be what is in your heart
Weep Little Lion Man
You’re not as brave as you were at the start
You can feel sorry for yourself boy. From where I am today, I can tell you that you won’t be what you want to be years from now. And you have the freedom to wallow knowing that you won’t be as courageous as you are now.
Rate yourself and rake yourself
Take all the courage you have left
And wasted on fixing all the problems
That you made in your own head
You have been enclosing yourself, defining yourself in terms and limiting yourself. And now, “Little Lion Man”, take all the bravery, that is left after judging yourself and fixing the problems you have created yourself in your own head and do something with it.
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn’t I, my dear?
Didn’t I, my —
But you know what, it was not your fault. I have failed you. I have ruined your dreams. The dreams of the younger lion man that was me. I have fucked it all, haven’t I ?
Tremble for yourself, my man
You know that you have seen this all before
Be wary of the fact that you might be turning into something that has failed you. Me. You don’t need to become the version that will fail yourself.
Tremble Little Lion Man
You’ll never settle any of your scores
Beware my little man, you will never be able to “settle” what scores you think you can and want to “settle”. You’ll never be that good.
Your grace is wasted in your face
Your boldness stands alone among the wreck
All your efforts have gone in vain because you only cared for what looked good from the outside. You could never get past the superficiality of your problems. And now, all that’s left is this your pile of pride in the wreckage your problems have caused.
Now learn from your mother
Or else spend your days biting your own neck
You need to take a few lessons about care and love from your mother. Like how a lioness helps her cubs get out from ditches by grabbing them by their neck.
When we think about our pasts.. about our own selves.. about our younger selves.. Have we lived up to their expectations ?
Do we even have to ?
Are we going to dismiss all of those hopes and dreams by calling our younger selves naive ?
Or is our present self avoiding the true guilt of failure today?
If you have failed your past self, will you apologise ?
Do you respect your younger self enough to go up to them and be in the same space as them, and for once, own your shit ?
And say :
But it was not your fault but mine
And it was your heart on the line
I really fucked it up this time
Didn’t I, my dear?
