“One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.” ~Golda Meir
I don’t like to revisit the past. If I move — I move. If I quit a job, I’m gone — that’s it. A prior home just doesn’t feel right — almost gloomy if I have to spend too much time there.
My friend says I “roll hard”. Meaning that when I roll, I roll on and do not return. If I quit a job, there’s no sense in me going back and hanging out. Back when I was in the dating scene, when I would stop dating someone, she would probably never see me again. I would fail miserably as stalker.
Part of me wonders if this is not true of all “forward thinkers”. I think about tomorrow, the next week, and the next year. Today is okay, but I’m always anticipating.
I like that quality about myself from the perspective of optimism. It tomorrow is going to be better than today, it is tough to get depressed. I am always optimistic about life working out well – even if it appears bleak at times.
But there is a weakness in forward thinking. Since today is better than all days in the past, my past feels bittersweet at best and miserable at worst. Not always… But sometimes.
I’ll sometimes look back to a time when I was having a great day and it feels, how should I say? Creepy. I think to myself “you call that happy? It’s not near as great as it is now.” It is sad to put it into writing because suddenly it feels like I’ll never have one of those “rocking chair moments” when I’m 85 years old. A rocking chair moment is where I am sitting on the porch with my wife as an old man reminiscing about the “good old days.” There is no way to reminisce about “the good old days” if there aren’t any.
I can see why some people run away and never go back. As if someone walks into your past life with an ax to chop up and defile the memories. You just don’t want to go back there.
Sometimes however, going back is required. A funeral of a loved one, a 100-year birthday, or a business trip… The first day of going back is hard, but he gets easier in the coming days.
Why? Because you aren’t really going back. Things are different. People have aged. The endless tick of the clock forges forward. Not even a bad memory can stop it. Today in Kansas is much different than it was 30 years ago. Progress has been made; they even have HDTV and computers! It’s just the filters through which I look are flawed.
The beauty of studying self-development is I have the tools where I can change those filters. Sometimes I do change them. But more often I just leave them be. I leave them alone because of the experience. After all, you can’t go around all day with a goofy grin on your face. There needs to be a balance — the yin and the yang. Awkwardness, sadness, and longing is part of the human experience. Accepting the feelings (as uncomfortable as they may be) is the strong thing to do.
Are you a forward thinker, past thinker or present thinker? How does that frame of mind affect your day to day life? Does it make it easier, more difficult or does it affect you in other ways?
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>There needs to be a balance – the yin and the yang. Awkwardness, sadness, and longing is part of the human experience.
I think this is why I listen to a lot of music that is emotional, and dark at times. Sometimes I like making myself feel certain emotions. I also think back to the past, and sometimes wonder what might have been. I agree that it’s perfectly normal and healthy. You can still roll hard and have softer moments.
I suppose I am in the group “All of the above”. I am just a killer on details, to the point where a project suddenly fell apart because a vendor failed to do something (physical infrastructure things related to networks) causing a 3 month delay in a project that was going to lose a million dollars a day if we were late. So I used by backup plan, a different vendor that was building out the same infrastructure. About a week later a the vendor failed in the same way and said 3 month delay. – Consider a 100 million dollar loss as bad for job security? My third vendor delivered on time.
On the other hand I can be so out there in la-la land that people have asked if I was drinking – and I wasn’t.
Sadly, each day I have no clue which direction I will be going, but I know I don’t look in the past.
Music is a big trigger for me too. It can take me back quickly to prior times.
Richard, seems like some high-stakes there. I don’t blame you for zoning out into la-la land occasionally just to keep it together.
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