But what does it mean to improve? What does it mean to move forward?
A lot of people say: “never look back, always keep moving forward”. I get this sentiment: dwelling in the past will make it hard for us to improve and move forward in our lives, but looking backwords won’t, it will only improve our current experiences.
But what does it mean to improve? What does it mean to move forward?
No matter how much we may try to deny it, our past is here to stay, it will be with us till we get separated from our body. Our roots, our past, our memories all constitute who we are as a person and to pretend as if those don’t matter anymore is counterproductive. How can I improve if I pretend my huge mistakes never happened? How can I move forward if I forget lived experiences for the sake of “never looking back”?
Mistakes are bound to repeat themselves if we don’t think critically about the past.
The past continues to haunt the present in ways that we might not know about. Our decisions are always influenced by what we have gone through and every individual had different experiences , thus would look at same thing differently and this is the most beautiful part about being Human, we are same and yet so different.
The present and the future is all informed by the past – and this applies to everything. Our own lives, our society, our country, our world. Looking backwards critically is not the same as endless and needless dwelling on the past. Looking backwards is to look at the mistakes we have made in the past, and not forgetting the effect that has on our current lived experiences. Looking backwards is to look at the past and using that past to propel us to move forward by building upon or improving upon the failures and successes we had in the past. Everything can become a tool to tear down the house brick by brick or to build a new house brick by brick. Dwelling is not the same as not forgetting. Forgetting, however, is detrimental to any sort of improvement and action to address ills within our lives or society.
