Looking at the past helps us understand recurring patterns, but using it as an excuse to avoid taking personal responsibility today gets us stuck. In today’s blogpost, I share my opinion on why reliving the past won’t help us move forward…
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, global neighbors!
We humans have weird habits. We make mistakes, usually not on purpose, and most of the time we just move on and forget all about it. Until the day comes everything seems to fall apart. We suddenly feel stuck, overwhelmed, or even depressed.
One way or another, we come to learn about the mistakes that empires, countries, society as a whole, or individuals have made. Yet somehow, we keep repeating those same bad decisions… individually and collectively. While I do believe it is wise to ensure we do not forget wrong choices and their impact, I also believe reliving the past over and over again won’t help us.
As much as we would like to, we can’t change mistakes made, wrong decisions taken and thus not undo history. It can be certainly helpful to look at the past to uncover recurring patterns. Root-cause analyses are not only useful for companies, but also for both societal and individual matters.
A traumatic event, a control freak, a greedy person from decades ago can still trigger you right now, in the present moment. You can still feel the emotions of anger, frustration, or sadness rising again when a memory surfaces to the front of your mind. Knowledge of what causes the trigger can be very helpful for sure.
Looking at what happened in the past from different angles can provide understanding of why things are the way they are, or why a person (or you) behaved the way they did or do behave today.
However, I have really come to dislike how the past is so often used as an excuse to continue bad behavior or poor choices in the present. It is why I believe it is valid to disConnect when personal responsibility is not taken.
Discover what causes the behavior or problems today. Explore it from various angles, acknowledge who was responsible (even if it was you), accept it and make a new, better decision. For society, your loved ones, yourself.
When done well, we do not have to relive the past over and over again.
