In my previous post, I discussed the penchant for we humans to try today to understand tomorrow and how this enterprise is set up to fail again and again. Now, I will turn my attention in the opposite direction -- trying to understand yesterday. Interestingly enough, I think we fail at this endeavor just as often as we do regarding the future.
At this juncture, I will not provide the same caveat as before. While I happen to be an excellent worrywart, I cannot say the same thing about looking backward. While many people I know revel in reliving or wallowing in their past successes and failures, I rarely engage in this activity. Part of the reason is very simple -- I don't remember!
This seems to be one of my idiosyncrasies. Once the present moment fades into the past, it sort of exits my consciousness in a rather definitive way. Not only can I not recall vast portions of my childhood and early adulthood, I often can't readily remember what I did yesterday or even two hours ago! (Of course, it COULD be that I'm so fraught with worry about the future that there simply isn't sufficient room to catalog the past.)
The other reason I don't fixate on the past is that it's over and done with. Can't change it. So, why worry about it? (Of course, this very same rationale can be applied to the future, but...)
When most people delve into their past, this process is filled with should haves and could haves. If I had done this differently, then there would have been a different -- and often better -- outcome. That may very well be true, BUT there is no sure way to know IF it is true and what that different outcome might have been!
You see, we suffer from the same problem as before. In the case of the future, we apply today's knowledge and experience to situations in which our knowledge and experience will have grown to be something different. In the case of the past, we apply today's knowledge and experience to situations in which we had not yet gained the knowledge and experience we possess right now.
It is next to impossible to isolate where we were then with where we are now. We end up analyzing the past with tools that weren't at our disposal and, had we had those tools then, we'd still be at a completely different place now.
The upshot of this discussion is that both the past and future are beyond our grasp. It's one thing to think about each in an idle manner, but it's quite another to fret or wallow in them. What has transpired has come and gone. What may transpire in the future hasn't arrived.
So, embrace and feel the now. It's the only part of our existence that we have some -- though not a lot of -- control over.
At this juncture, I will not provide the same caveat as before. While I happen to be an excellent worrywart, I cannot say the same thing about looking backward. While many people I know revel in reliving or wallowing in their past successes and failures, I rarely engage in this activity. Part of the reason is very simple -- I don't remember!
This seems to be one of my idiosyncrasies. Once the present moment fades into the past, it sort of exits my consciousness in a rather definitive way. Not only can I not recall vast portions of my childhood and early adulthood, I often can't readily remember what I did yesterday or even two hours ago! (Of course, it COULD be that I'm so fraught with worry about the future that there simply isn't sufficient room to catalog the past.)
The other reason I don't fixate on the past is that it's over and done with. Can't change it. So, why worry about it? (Of course, this very same rationale can be applied to the future, but...)
When most people delve into their past, this process is filled with should haves and could haves. If I had done this differently, then there would have been a different -- and often better -- outcome. That may very well be true, BUT there is no sure way to know IF it is true and what that different outcome might have been!
You see, we suffer from the same problem as before. In the case of the future, we apply today's knowledge and experience to situations in which our knowledge and experience will have grown to be something different. In the case of the past, we apply today's knowledge and experience to situations in which we had not yet gained the knowledge and experience we possess right now.
It is next to impossible to isolate where we were then with where we are now. We end up analyzing the past with tools that weren't at our disposal and, had we had those tools then, we'd still be at a completely different place now.
The upshot of this discussion is that both the past and future are beyond our grasp. It's one thing to think about each in an idle manner, but it's quite another to fret or wallow in them. What has transpired has come and gone. What may transpire in the future hasn't arrived.
So, embrace and feel the now. It's the only part of our existence that we have some -- though not a lot of -- control over.
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