The past was so good, but now…

If I really concentrate and think, my past doesn’t seem so incredibly beautiful…It has its ups and downs, the same way as the present does.

But why bother with that tough thing concentration — the past was so good, but now…

Now everything is difficult, not under my control, boring, stressful, crazy…

Damn!

Old good days! I wish I could go back and live them again.

Even my mom says that life was easier, and granny agrees — it was different, different in a good way, except few days — when they didn’t have food, because they couldn’t find work; or maybe also those days when the pharmacies were running out of painkillers, exactly after her surgery. But that fresh air…and an ice-cream made of real milk and birds were singing so charmingly when she was waking up at 5 in the morning to milk the cows, so the ice-cream factory could make an ice-cream which she would buy once a month, maybe twice.

Doesn’t seem that great…but granny disagrees. Of course, she is an old, wise lady…and maybe she knows better.

But what about me? What about you? What about all the people who feel the past is better to compare to what the future holds?

I’ve tried to find an explanation and stumbled upon — “Declinism”, in simple words — is the tendency to believe that the worst is to come. Findings have suggested that we tend to remember the positive outcomes of our life from our early childhood or youth more than the negative outcomes. That is why we tend to see our past as more favorable than the uncertain future…

And no matter how we try to reason that there are objective increases in education, the standard of living, equality, life expectancy, and much more… some of the people- like my mom or granny and even me sometimes still believe that the past was better and the future will be worse…

And while we are looking back to the delightful past or focusing on the uncertain and most likely scary future it is easy to lose sight of our present life and what it holds. This can make our life quickly pass by without the enjoyment of the present.

I’ve just met with my friends for a cup of coffee…the weather was incredible, as we all like — not too hot and not cold either and we wanted to discuss the little project that we’ve been postponing for a couple of months. As we were sitting on the grass in the park we let our memories lead us through the concert we attended a couple of years ago –actually, we all got drunk and didn’t remember much, but wasn’t it fun? It was! About our trip to the seaside — that’s when I broke my leg, but wasn’t I getting all the attention in the little unsanitary hospital? And about our dance school… The coffee got cold and the time passed fast…We all had to run: “ See you soon! And next time we’ll definitely talk about our little project!”

After the meeting, though as always with a warm feeling after seeing my friends, I thought — one more time we found ourselves romanticizing the past and longing for things to be the way they were, we simply edited out the bad parts believing that if we could live through those days again we would be happy, really happy. And we, if I being honest, simply wasted some precious time, talking about long passed past instead of focusing on how to improve our present and finally getting to that project of ours!

Is there a way to block or push aside all those memories? I didn’t find one…and when I asked others I got a justified question “What for? Memories are nice…”

I’ve checked what psychologists think on the subject and their suggestion seemed to be quite simple… All you have to do is to envision yourself pushing the worries or good memories behind a door and locking it. I managed to imagine the door, but when I was trying to open it the memories of me fishing in the village with my cousin when I was 6 or 7 started to come and they were so marvelous. Stopping thoughts isn’t something I am very good at! And how could I close those memories behind that ugly metal door…I let them take me, warm my soul, and actually I fell asleep for twenty minutes to wake up stressed remembering the approaching deadline.

Everybody knows that you can only change what is in the present and you should focus on it. But that is so hard at times, especially when the past drowning you back, calling for your attention. But I got very serious — put together a list of things that I can focus on instead: like working on my YouTube channel, starting my own website that will help me to be as creative as I want to and…the rest of the list was not that interesting, just work-related things.

But something started to trigger my worries about the future — all those what-if questions? What if I can’t? What if it will not work out? I was pushing those thoughts away and was doing a pretty good job for a couple of days, but then I had to visit my mother and we talked about the times I was small. Was it hard to get back to the list? It sure was…

I imagine that people tend to be quite different in the things they think about. Some people are always thinking about the future and the good and bad things that might happen to them — I have a few friends who do so, some are stack in their past –like my granny and many others and there are lucky ones that have their mind mainly in the present without much thought for the past or future.

On the other hand, if done in the right amount –bringing memories might help us learn more about ourselves. Maybe, it gives us a better picture of how we’ve changed over time and why we do what we do…

Maybe it all comes down to what you are gaining from thinking about the past. If you feel that you are drawing lessons from the past, why not? If it just to feel good even about the things that weren’t that good — it is time to stop and think, think how to get rid of that little problem of yours — going back instead of staying here.

There are only two things that we can truly control — our thoughts and our behavior.

Bruce Lee believed that we must be like water — it always adopts the shape of its surroundings. It adapts to past, present, and future…going its way.

It’s simply unrealistic to expect you to feel the same way every single day of your life, but it is very likely to find the way to be like water and adapt your thoughts to your current reality, so you feel your life and live in the present.

Written by Helena Maksyom

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