So many people adhere to the mantra, “Never look back, always move forward in life.”
After much pondering, and my readers know how I love to ponder, I must disagree. At least in part.
I imagine the difference lies in why you’re looking backward.
Is it with regret? If so than perhaps that serves no purpose. Yet, in other ways it could.
The regrets we admit to in life, even to ourselves can serve a positive purpose going forward.
Refusing to reflect on and examine our past decisions can only lead to repeats of the choices which caused us pain and a lack of progress.
We need to see these experiences for what they really are: lessons. Ways to avoid the mistakes made before.
If never remembered they will probably be repeated thus leading to the same outcome. As life speeds by we learn that time is something to be embraced and repetition is the surest way to waste precious moments.
If we don’t contemplate and remind ourselves of past foibles, we will squander time.
So it’s important to ruminate when faced with similar problems.
This is a positive outcome of the past.
A negative one would be looking backward to decry and feel badly about those incidents we could or should have handled better.
If you have reached a point where you have examined your behavior and the lessons have been embraced and committed to memory than beating yourself up over them serves no purpose.
We can’t go back and undo the past no matter how much we would like. The only way to turn a negative outcome into a positive one is to use the information going forward.
No good can come of self-flagellation. Making oneself feel stupid or naïve only encourages self-doubt and anger over something we cannot change.
We all have a mental list of those moments in life we’d like to recant. Yet when and if we had the opportunity to do so, would they change the future in any way? Would they change the person we have become and interfere with lessons we learned and used to our advantage moving forward?
If we are all a product of our past decisions, we wouldn’t be the same had we modified those outcomes.
Sort of the old sliding door affect. Would changing one decision, even as minor as taking a different route to a destination, have led us to a different place and result?
Probably, yes.
And would we have been satisfied with that variation? I suppose there is no way of knowing.
I do know that we are the ultimate product of all the choices we make. Bad and Good.
Many instances in life we’re disappointed with a result very different than we’d hoped for. Yet looking back on it later, it’s actually so much better than we could have imagined.
If that is the case, many ask what is the point if fate is at work in our lives? Do we really choose or does the universe choose for us? Well truly that question is above my pay grade.
I can only say many times I’ve wished for a certain outcome and felt sad when it didn’t go my way.
So many times I’ve been shocked at how much better an incident turned out. Mostly far more wonderful than I could’ve ever imagined. An outcome that sent my life in a much more positive direction.
Then are we to believe we should just let it all go? Perhaps so. Yet as control freaks we want to believe we do have the ability to choose for ourselves. That we are the masters of our fates. It all begins and ends with us.
If one needs to believe we are, than by all means I say you are the boss of your life. Believe and embrace your own power.
So many say we create our destiny and only we are the architects of our fate.
Yet I still feel that there is something more. Something that is at play whenever we are faced with a possibility that will ultimately take us down a new path. An unknown, untraveled destination.
We go the direction we believe is the best option. Sometimes it is, sometimes not. Yet from a bad result may come new wisdom and knowledge. An ability to decide more shrewdly next time. If we look at the past as a tool, always there and available to guide and inspire us, looking backward can be seen as positive.
The second way to revisit the past is for the purpose of enjoying our memories. It’s why we have the ability to remember. That’s why it’s such a tragedy if one loses the capacity to recapture time with loved ones and happy times of youth.
Memories aren’t just to learn from, they are to enjoy. A way to time travel back to innocent, simpler times.
No responsibilities, no worries, just fun and carefree moments with friends and family with whom you experienced those years.
So if someone tells you looking backward is not a positive activity, be reminded of all the joy and knowledge we can receive by doing exactly that.
As long as we don’t spend all our time in the past instead of making new memories we can call on in the future.
So conjure up a few happy minutes with your yesterdays and then go visit your grandchildren. After all, tomorrow you will be an important part of their memories.
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