Every scar has a story. “Letter to My Younger Self” invites you into the reflective hearts of people who've walked winding roads—offering gentle truths, bold lessons, and encouragement for anyone still figuring it out. These weekly letters are full of grace and grit, showing how setbacks shape wisdom and how the past still holds power to teach. From nurturing curiosity to embracing mentorship, each piece is a tribute to growth through lived experience.
Wawira Gathoni (Not her real name) pens this week’s heartfelt Letter to My Younger Self. Here is part eight of her series
Dear Younger self,
Your career did not begin with certainty. It began with survival.
Like many young graduates, you were not initially searching for “purpose-driven work.” You were searching for opportunity. Stability. Experience. A way to begin building a life for yourself.
People often romanticise careers after success arrives. They tell stories as though purpose was always obvious from the beginning.
But most people discover their life’s work slowly. You did too.
You started in the children sector.
At the time, you may not have fully realised how much that work would shape your understanding of the world. But once you begin working closely with children and communities, certain truths become impossible to ignore.
You begin seeing inequality differently. You begin understanding how early life experiences shape confidence, opportunity, and future outcomes.
You begin noticing that many children are failed long before adulthood ever arrives.
And once you see those things clearly, they stay with you. Then came work around harmful cultural practices.
That work changed you too.
Because there is something deeply sobering about witnessing how culture can both protect and harm people simultaneously. You began understanding how systems, family systems, social systems, gender norms, educational systems, economic systems, quietly shape human lives long before individuals ever get the chance to make independent choices.
You also began understanding women differently. Girls differently. Pain differently. Resilience differently.
I think that work expanded your emotional awareness in ways university never could.
It taught you that communities are complex. That people are complex. That social change is never as simple as outsiders often imagine. It taught you to listen before judging. To understand before speaking.
And perhaps most importantly, it taught you that dignity matters. Deeply. Then somewhere along the journey, education found you.
Or perhaps more truthfully, you found yourself inside education work.
Because suddenly, everything connected. Your own childhood. Growing up in shags. Moving to Nairobi. The schools that shaped your confidence.
The opportunities education created for you. The inequalities you had personally observed. The girls whose potential remained unseen. The young people searching for direction.
The systems that determine who gets access to opportunity and who does not.
For the first time, your personal story and professional work began speaking to each other.
That matters. Because purpose often lives at the intersection of personal experience and social need. And education became that intersection for you. Not education in the narrow sense of grades and exams alone.
But education as dignity. Education as opportunity. Education as confidence. Education as systems change. Education as possibility.
The deeper you entered the sector, the more you realised how much children’s futures are shaped long before society begins judging their outcomes. You began understanding that foundational learning is not simply an academic issue. It is deeply connected to inequality, poverty, confidence, leadership, gender, citizenship, and even national development.
That awareness transformed how you saw your work. You were no longer simply working jobs. You were becoming part of conversations about systems, equity, and transformation.
And slowly, your confidence began changing too. Not the loud confidence of youth. Something deeper. Grounded confidence. The kind that comes from alignment.
The kind that comes from knowing your work matters beyond personal ambition.
And honestly, I think your younger self would be surprised by the woman you eventually became professionally.
Boardrooms. Strategy conversations. Policy discussions. Leadership spaces. International convenings. Fundraising conversations.
Advocacy. Systems thinking.
You, the little girl from shags who once hated her own name, now speaking boldly in rooms connected to education, equity, and social transformation.
Life is strange that way.
But what makes me most proud is not your title or achievements.
It is the kind of professional you became.
Because somewhere along the way, you developed values that now shape everything you do.
You became deeply self-aware. You began believing strongly in accountability. In integrity.
In doing what is right even when nobody is watching.
That last one matters especially in adulthood because the older you get, the more opportunities life gives people to compromise themselves quietly.
Sometimes for money. Sometimes for status. Sometimes for approval. Sometimes simply because “everyone else is doing it.”
But your experiences taught you something important very early: Character matters long after performance is forgotten.
And perhaps that is one of the greatest things your journey gave you. Not perfection. Not certainty. Conviction.
The kind of conviction built slowly through observing people, systems, pain, leadership, injustice, resilience, and hope over many years.
Today, when people see your passion for education and systems change, they may assume it was always intentional.
But you know the truth. Purpose rarely arrives all at once.
Sometimes it reveals itself through every job, every difficult season, every community, every conversation, and every version of yourself you survive along the way.
And somehow, without even realising it at first, the work found you.
Or perhaps more beautifully: You finally found the work that reflected who you already were becoming all along.
Everyone has a story worth sharing. If you’ve ever wished you could talk to your younger self—with wisdom, forgiveness, or clarity—we invite you to write to us. Your real, heartfelt letter might just be the encouragement someone else needs today. You may remain anonymous if preferred, but your truth matters. We don’t pay contributors, but we believe in the power of shared experience. Join us in building a collection of life’s hard-earned lessons and gentle reminders.
Be part of this movement. Send your Letter to My Younger Self to: [email protected]
