Finding Maturity in the Here and Now

My coach recently gave me Charlie Chaplin’s 70th birthday speech: As I Began to Love Myself to read, and something remarkable happened. Nearly every paragraph spoke to me so deeply that I found myself pausing to reflect. I knew I had to share some of the passages that touched me most profoundly. Let me start with this one:

As I began to love myself, I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today, I call it “MATURITY”.

This quote perfectly captures what 2025 has meant for me. This is the year I finally fell in love with the place I chose to call home over five years ago. I realized I was actually recreating a life I had adored 22 years earlier—returning to my roots through hiking mountains, paddling lakes, and biking the trails I had learned to love so deeply.

The revelation hit me: happiness isn’t somewhere else. Growth isn’t waiting in some distant future. Both exist here and now. My constant search for something “different,” something “better,” something just out of reach—it all quietly subsided. Instead, I began embracing what I already had. After all, I chose this place for a reason, and I chose well.

Coming from Brazil, I grew up knowing nothing about seasons the way we experience them in Canada. When I moved to the Okanagan five years ago, I discovered what it means to live with four truly distinct seasons. It’s like inhabiting four different worlds throughout the year, each with its own personality and hidden treasures.

This year, as I embraced outdoor adventures—mostly hiking alone or with just one companion and my little dog—I learned something important about adaptation. I had to shift my plans based on the season and the wildlife I might encounter. Too hot? Time for the lake or higher elevations. Rattlesnakes active? Let’s find trails where they prefer not to venture.

I could call this newfound flexibility maturity, but I prefer what a friend once told me: I was becoming grounded. And I’ve discovered that nature has an incredible power over me—it centers and grounds me like nothing else can.

This is what loving myself looks like now: recognizing that everything around me is already inviting me to grow, right here, right now.