Good or bad – Our past, a beacon of hope for the future

The past, it seems, can never be forgotten. More often than not, it leaves indelible marks on the lives of individuals and families. One tumultuous negative incident can bring about major changes in the way a family or an individual approaches the rest of his life. In comparison, seldom does a positive incident of equal magnitude brings about similar sweeping changes. Negativity, by the sheer weight of fearfulness it brings, far outweighs positivity & its effects. As a result, any young adult is taught more about 'what he must not do', in place of 'what he should do' for leading a happy and prosperous life. And, generation after generation, normal families and individuals are conditioned to a behavior driven more by fear than hope. Thereby, losing the key to living happily without carrying the burden of past on their shoulders.

Our past, if seen as a life of an alter ego rather than our own, can be segregated into a chronological order of events that occurred as a result of good or bad decisions taken by another individual. In doing so, the victimization associated with the past events of our lives mellows down a bit and allows us to think clearly and objectively. Once the segregation is done, the failures or bad decisions can be analyzed to detect a single common or multiple common threads of behavior under different circumstances. On detection, these threads get subconsciously imprinted on our minds and can initiate a trigger, whenever, circumstances similar to the past ones, develop in our present life. The key to lessening the burden of past is to listen to this subconscious trigger, break the behavioral pattern and take better decisions than the ones taken on previous occasions.

Our past, as a precursor of every good that exists in our present, must also be remembered for all the wise decisions taken. These decisions can also be identified during the aforementioned segregation of life events and must also be carefully analyzed to detect the corresponding behavioral threads. Upon subconscious imprinting, these threads can help us in two ways. Firstly, as an obvious outcome, the associated trigger can aid in taking correct decisions under similar circumstances. Secondly and more importantly, the imprinting can help us in remembering our past in a balanced way - as a combination of successes and failures, instead of just failures.

Our past, for a good number of us, is traumatic to remember due to the scars made by somebody else's actions on our lives. It may be a close friend, trusted colleague, relative or even a family member, whose irresponsible deeds would've deeply hurt us in the past and years after, we may still be reeling under that blow. To lessen this pain, we must first stop fixating on the perpetrator or the incident and then gradually train our minds to focus on the well-wishers of our life. We must also realize that the balance of ‘all that is happening in the universe’ is such that, sooner or later, the perpetrator will get back the hurt and repent his past actions. The key is to forgive the sinner and embrace the Good Samaritans.

Our past, it seems, can never be erased off from our lives. It has made us who we are today, and, therefore, is inseparable from our identities. However, it can be segregated into good or bad lessons and help us to live better lives in future. It can act as a guiding light by empowering us to make better choices of the people we want to be with and the daily decisions we take. But, irrespective of whether we learn from our past or not, it must be remembered that howsoever bleak the situation becomes, our present is independent of our past and how we live our present will determine the past of our future.