Temporal Balance: The Past
The past is a useful source of information, but it can also be a dangerous distraction at times. While we can learn about our world and how to better work towards our goals, what works and doesn’t, we also sometimes ruminate on moments that are long gone where there is nothing new to learn, imagining how things could have been different.
In my last entry, I talked about the present and future, so here I’ll be looking at the past. The way we experience the past is limited by the fallibility of our memories, both their inaccuracy and incompleteness. Additionally, as with the present and future, there is a danger of only looking at things from our perspective. For example, maybe there was an awkward social situation that you ruminate on, imagining how much better you could have handled things when, in reality, everyone else is too busy with their own lives to really care. We also may look at situations based on immediate outcomes, without seeing the bigger picture. Maybe you think about how you could have been promoted if your boss liked you a bit more, when the extra wealth you would have gained wouldn’t have been very useful. Not that either of these examples are always how those situations play out of course, but it’s worth looking at past mistakes that you think about and ask yourself which ones they are: were they really of consequence in the first place?
This is why it’s essential to constantly ask yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing as much as possible, so that you can move efficiently toward your goals. With the past, as with other experiences, try to take from it what you can and disregard what you can’t. That doesn’t mean you can’t judge events in your past, but try not to waste too much energy deviating from a fixed reality, especially when the present is right there in front of you. There’s only so much energy in all of us, and even if there wasn’t, there’s only so much time in each day, and in our lives for that matter. It would be a shame to spend large quantities of time remembering painful memories with no benefit in sight.
Also, it may be a good idea to question what you’re told about the past. We don’t learn all of human history, and all that we know about human history is limited by our own fallible memories, conflicting sources, lack of understanding of context, etc. But I’ll be covering the past in more detail in the next entry.
A central theme of this blog is that asking questions without being told to do so is an invaluable skill. Other people do not have the same interests for you, and that’s why you have to question them so you can obtain knowledge that allows you to effectively look out for yourself. But sometimes, your mind can become your own worst enemy, if you give in to irrational impulses. That’s why it’s actually important to question yourself as well, so you can make yourself act in yourself’s best interests, which it sometimes does not.