Sometimes I wonder about the people I could have been.
Not because I regret my life. Not because I wish I had made completely different choices. It is more a feeling of curiosity. A quiet thought that appears every now and then. What if I had taken a different path?
Life is full of small decisions that seem unimportant at the time. Choosing a school. Applying for a job. Moving to a new place. Saying yes to one opportunity and no to another. Meeting one person and not meeting someone else. Most of these moments do not feel significant when they happen. But looking back, they often changed everything.
Sometimes I think about the version of me who went deeper into technology. The one who spent his days building software and working in the tech industry full-time. Sometimes I think about the version of me who left Switzerland and moved to a bigger city. Maybe New York. Maybe somewhere else. And sometimes I think about the version of me who never met certain people. The version whose life followed a completely different direction because one conversation never happened. What fascinates me is that all of these lives feel possible. Not realistic anymore, perhaps, but possible.
As we grow older, we usually focus on becoming someone. We talk about finding ourselves, building a career, creating relationships and developing an identity. But there is another side to that process. Every choice we make also means letting go of other possibilities. The moment I became the person I am today, I also stopped becoming countless other versions of myself. Öl
There is a strange beauty in that. When I was younger, I sometimes imagined that one day I would finally figure everything out. That there was a “correct” version of Fabio waiting somewhere in the future. Today I do not think that version exists. I think we are all shaped by the choices we make, the people we meet and sometimes by pure coincidence. There is no perfect path hiding somewhere behind the others. There is only the path we are walking right now.
That does not mean the other possibilities disappear completely. I think they stay with us in small ways. The version of me who loves technology still appears whenever I start building a new app. The version of me who dreams about living in a bigger city appears whenever I visit a place that feels full of energy and possibility. The version of me who wants to try something completely different appears every time I get excited about a new idea. Maybe those alternative lives never fully disappear. Maybe they simply become part of who we are.
I do not wonder about these other versions of myself because I want to be them. I wonder about them because they remind me of something important. Life is not only about becoming someone. It is also about choosing who not to become. And perhaps growing older means making peace with both.