33 years ago today, The Wonder Years premiered. It changed my life of course, but it also changed the way a half hour television program was viewed.

It wasn’t quite a comedy, wasn’t quite a drama.  It was a single camera show in a live audience world.  It didn’t quite fit in, but it was also immediately familiar.  In short, it was the very embodiment of adolescence.

It looked back with nostalgia at a time in everyone’s life that is far from perfect, but crucial in our personal development.  As the narration sums up perfectly in the pilot, we look back at those years with wonder.

33 years later, nostalgia is very much a thing.  You see it everywhere.  My issue with nostalgia is that, by definition, it needs to live in the past or else it loses its authenticity.  You can’t re-live your childhood, you can’t regain your innocence.

But what you can do is acknowledge those things in your life that made an impact on your development, those key life moments that make you you.

Instead of re-living your past through those particular life moments I’ve learned to embrace the life lessons learned in those moments and focus on living those truths forward.  Moments that taught me loyalty, and friendship, heartbreak and triumph, successes and failures

You can’t go back to childhood, but you can take those special moments and apply them to your daily life and towards your personal goals and cultural contributions.  That’s honoring your personal life experiences and how you continue to live your own authentic Wonder Years