Memories

Why are the "Good ole days" better than the Future that lies before us?
Are you a sentimental person?
Or do you prefer to forget your past in hopes of a better future?
Me....I am financially very secure, own and operate a large company.
But I long for the "Good ole days"
When I was first married. (now divorced in a tumultuous long term relationship)
When I had young children. (Now my adult and Teenage children wont speak to me)
Even farther back....Childhood. (I came from a happy home...parents still married going on 63 yrs)

"I wanna go back, and do it all over but I cant go back, I know"
`Monty Byrom of Billy Satellite`

prom

The future can hold anything, be it good or bad, and that's quite intimidating at times. And then, with the past, often it only seems so good because you've forgotten the bad things that happened back then. Our memories just smooth out the little imperfections that bothered us so when the past was the present. All of that combined is why I think people tend to long for the 'good ole days'.

That makes a lot of sense...Thanks for your reply.
:-)

I don't often pop into these forums but I thought I'd drop my two cents worth here. I think we reminisce and rehash the old days because we were a part of something significant enough to still be haunting us. Even the painful memories are often with us still because they were part of a more beautiful whole. The bad and the painful are softened by time and don't seem as harsh. We don't spend every waking moment longing for the past, typically. Only when things are quiet or not going as well. And at those moments all we remember was being part of something bigger. Bah, I'm rambling. Anyway, you get the gist of it.  :)

I can remember as a child complaining and my mom would say, "dont be unhappy, one day you will look back on these days as the best time in your life."
She was right as always...

There is so much heartache the worldover and perhaps there has always been. But I too find myself wishing for those past summer moons and delicate winter suns that seemed to whisper vows of hope. Life is a pilgrimage and yet sometimes I feel that I wish to be at the starting line anticipation a bated breath away from reality. Anywho great thought provoking start to a thread writer! Lovely

I used to always wish for older days, even though older days were horrible for me. I have some fond nostalgia for communities I used to be apart of, and pride in accomplishments I have done in those, should not that pride be enough to move on?

I think where the desire comes from is the fact that we have changed since "the good ol' days". We lose our ability to be exactly like how we were when we felt and did those things in the past, and realizing that change makes us want to go back. I am certain any child who became an adult missed some of the security that came with being a child, and felt pained by the amount of newfound responsibility and complicated changes we had to go through. So we regress, and want to return to what we already know, what is less scary and new, and what we wish we could do again. I think that is why we look back like that, even on years of our life where we were miserable we may have nostalgia over who we were then.

The innocence of youth, and hindsight being 20/20 and all that jazz. The past is more likely to be idealized and rose-tinted than the future as the past has memories and events that we can firmly cling to. Whereas the future is a nebulous malleable mess where anything might happen and the somewhat mature cynical and pessimistic mind sees nothing good happening in the future.

Personally the past and my youth has some 'good ole days' but not enough in abundance to offset the possibilities of the future for me. There is more for me to gain in the possibility of the future than in clinging to the past. Somewhat ironically I am not that tech-savvy so any future as or even more tech involved as the present and the noughties is unlikely to gel with me or be one I can keep up with. However there is the chance that I do something that puts me above and or beyond the trend enough to make the future more enticing than the past.

I am a relic of a past that never was, but can be a source of a future yet to come

Presents. The excitement and unknown quality of a present is often greater or as great as the present itself. There is a forward looking joy in in anticipation and exploration. So for the Sciences and technology the best is yet to come.

maybe the future leads to the end,
whereas the past has at least something
to begin with ..

Nothing soothes a wornt spirit like the warmth of melancholy ~

Viddax said:

I am a relic of a past that never was, but can be a source of a future yet to come.

Nice!