Learning from The Past, Looking to The Future, Living in the Now
We can learn from the past and look to the future by living in the now.
For a long time, I envied people who had certain childhood memories that I lack. A home they grew up in that was unchanged for 30 years, large families living within just a few miles of each other that gathered to celebrate milestones, childhood friends they remain in touch with today, and the like. That’s certainly not everyone’s story, and definitely not mine.
I have never called the same place home for more than 10 years. My family has always been small and scattered across multiple states, and I have lost touch with most of my friends from High School, let alone before that.
My story has often felt broken to me. That’s because, coupled with my different experiences, I’m missing a bunch of memories. For years, I sought to find them until I discovered they weren’t missing for some random reason. I’d erased them myself to protect myself.
This is a great example of how the past has come and gone. Much of my own personal past is so far gone that it might never have been. And yet, the past, even for me, is full of opportunities to learn new things.
One of the most important things I’ve learned is that you can’t bring back the past in the present to build the future. And yet, large swaths of society focus on that. Then, to complicate things, society looks at the future with goals that might work – up until they meet the unexpected and don’t.
You and I have no control over society. But we do have the ability to take control of our life experiences. We can learn from the past and look to the future by living in the now.
Why the past needs to be left where it is
Probably the single largest fault in the whole “Make America Great Again” narrative is how exclusionary it is. Reducing diversity, removing equity, and taking away inclusivity make no one and nothing great. Allowing only one point of view kills potential and possibility, which are necessary for anything to be made great.
The lie is built on artificial lack, scarcity, and insufficiency. That gets weaponized to address the grievances of people who feel left behind by progress, like they no longer matter to the world, to turn them against their own best interests.
The thing is, the past has come and gone. There is no going back, no returning to it, no redoing it, no undoing it. What’s more, memory is imperfect, biased, prejudiced, and flawed. The so-called “great” of the past tends to be a narrow, specific, exclusive perspective that lacks a lot of context.
For all these reasons, the past needs to be left where it is. But not ignored, forgotten, or disregarded. The past offers lessons you and I can learn from to live better here and now. Do good for ourselves and others. Look to where we’ve been to help figure out where we are and where we’re going.
Apart from learning from it, the past needs to remain where it is. Behind us. Attempts to return to it will always fail because you simply can’t. Sorry, MAGA, no going back because that past you’re so nostalgic for never actually existed.
What about the future?
The future is uncertain
Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to look to the future. Having goals, focus, aim, and the like, all make it easier to choose paths and directions. Without looking to the future, you get stuck at a crossroads, directionless.
That can, will, and does happen to everyone. Mostly, this occurs because we tend not to live in the now and spend most of our time looking backwards and forwards. I’ll get into the importance of the now in a bit. But first, let’s talk about the future.
As Yoda said in The Empire Strikes Back,
“Always in motion is the future.”
The future is fluid, uncertain, and unwritten. While you and I can do things to move ourselves toward it, we have next to no control over it. Shit happens. Random things occur. Unexpected change drops good, bad, and indifferent things on us.
What’s more, things happening here and now can, will, and do influence the future. Choices made and not made drive your life along any given path. When you choose no path, the future will still come, but likely without you having direction.
Again, the uncertainty of the future can make people feel lost, like they won’t matter, and out of control. That gets weaponized, and bleak pictures of artificial and false lack, scarcity, and insufficiency are used to stoke fear and herd people toward a narrow vision.
You and I are here, now. And we always have choices. They might be limited by things both real and false, but they still exist.
The now is where you have any real control
Right now, in this moment, you are. You are a human, being, here and now. Hence, here and now, in this moment, you can make choices and decisions about paths to walk, places to go, who, what, where, how, and why.
That, too, can terrify people. Making choices and decisions means making mistakes. When you make mistakes, things can go poorly. Yet you also open yourself to growth, to new experiences, and more.
The truth is, you and I have very little control over anything. Save ourselves. You and I can be present and use active conscious awareness to learn who, what, where, how, and why we are. And if you don’t like the answer, here in the now, you can change it.
To gain the necessary mindfulness to do this, all you need to do is ask questions like,
- What am I thinking?
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
- What am I intending here?
- Is my approach (to this, that, or the other thing) positive or negative?
- What am I doing/not doing?
Each question can only be asked and answered here and now. That’s because the past has come and gone, and the future is unknown, unwritten, and always moving.
When you practice mindfulness and being here, in the now, you gain a sense of more potential and possibility. But there is one small drawback.
Living in the now can make us outliers
Modern society doesn’t focus on the individual. Which, frankly, makes sense. The collective consciousness is made up of many. It’s the forest. But you and I are trees in the forest, and each is unique in our own ways.
The collective doesn’t empower individuals. That’s because it can’t. Empowerment is an inside job. You become empowered by asking the above questions, gaining conscious awareness, and practicing mindfulness to make choices and decisions.
The downside to this is that you might turn yourself into something of an outlier. Don’t confuse that with an outcast. Outliers might go against the grain, but they still function in the greater collective by choice. Being an outcast is the result of getting voted off the island. That usually is a result of not practicing kindness, compassion, and empathy.
When you make more choices and decisions for yourself, you might find yourself outside expected norms. Thus, an outlier. And that’s okay. Why? Because you alone live in your head, heart, and soul. Ergo, only you know what you need and desire from this life. Thus, you alone can choose and decide paths in life for yourself.
I don’t know about you, but I like to make my own choices and decisions for how I live my life. Wrong or right, this is how I make the most of this life and experience its meaning: TO LIVE. You have the same power, but it’s not the past nor the future where you can utilize it. This is all in what you choose and decide in the now. When you recognize and acknowledge this, you open lots of new doors and increase potential and possibilities. That’s something I certainly find worthwhile. What about you?
Kick ass, take names, and crush it.
Do you see how only in the now do you have control of your life experiences?
This is the seventh-hundred-fifty-fourth (754) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share my philosophy because I desire to make a difference in the world and help as many people as I can to find their empowerment with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to share and/or repost where it might do good for you and others.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
Also, please check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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