2024 September 10 Imagine the future, not the past

Hi, this is Jim Cranston from 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com, the podcast and website about reimagining your life. Thanks for joining me today to talk about remembering our past and how it shapes our future and our life outlook. If you like what you hear today, please leave a like, subscribe, tell your friends, and send me a message.

Thanks for joining me tonight to talk about remembering our past, which is similar to our memories, but there's a difference between abstract memories and really sitting down and remembering something. 

First, a reminder that tomorrow will be the 23rd anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001. Time goes past fast. Many things have changed in those 23 years, but unfortunately, as we talk about every week, civilization still has not quite grown up and learned to get along with itself. 

That leads into tonight's topic about how we perceive our own history and how it affects our outlook of the future. Maybe you've heard the saying that the days are long, but the years are short. There are a bunch of variations on that. Especially as we age, our perception of time changes. Psychology is pretty certain now that, with the exception of relatively few people that truly have a photographic memory, the rest of us muddle along, partially or even fully reconstructing our memories on the fly from combination of remembered bits of the actual event combined with more recent memories and facts and often with a liberal sprinkling of just-out-of-thin-air details to fill in the picture. This isn't entirely bad, and it's pretty much like everything our brain does. It's done for a combination of both efficiency and keeping us safe and alive.

This is why we tend to remember the good old days which very often weren't really all that good at all. Remember—that's a protective mechanism. Really bad things get etched into our memory to remember not to do them again, but mildly bad things are discarded to provide us with an actionable bias towards the actions that obviously keep us alive. 

Carey Morewedge of Carnegie Mellon University described this effect as memory is much like a music record store. It stocks the hits from the past, and both the hits and the duds of the present. So we have this bias of looking at current facts, and we see all the negative things, and when we look in the past, we see all the good things, but we've discarded the negative things.

So we have these pretty two well-established facts. The first is that we really don't remember nearly as much detail as we think we do, sometimes dramatically less detail. Secondly, we tend to paint a glowingly rosy picture of memories from the past. The food was better, the TV was better, the music was better, the country was better—the list just goes on and on.

This isn't to say that some of those preferences might be real, but it's pretty risky to assume that they're really accurate unless there's some sort of unbiased fact checking going on for our memories. Things like home movies, old newspapers, photographs, things like that. This is all fun and interesting, but what does it have to do with re-envisioning our future? It turns out it has a lot to do with it. Especially as we age. We often tend to get longings for things of the past. 

Somebody was talking about something that brought it to mind the other day, so I just wrote a little example out about it. Remember that awesome car we had in high school, that 1972 Chevy Impala, and how much fun it was to drive? Maybe it was a convertible, and what we forget was that it weighed two tons. It had a 24-gallon gas tank because it needed that much gas. The heater wasn't all that great. It didn't have air conditioning. It started rusting when it was about three years old. The radio only worked when it felt like it, and the list goes on and on. Instead, what we really remember is that one moonlit summer night when it actually started, and we even had a full tank of gas, and we went for a long ride with that cute girl or boy, depending, and how we happened to park in that one place that the radio actually got good reception, and listened to our favorite song, and got a kiss, and on. It's a wonderful story.

But out of that list, probably only about half those things are really even true, and that's if you're lucky. The problem with not being critical when we review those good-old-day sorts of memories, is that we can easily get ourselves into a state of wishing to return to something that never really happened in the first place. 

This can happen in many different areas. It can happen emotionally, our physical location, relationships—it affects everything. It's a double-edged sword because we long for things that never really happened. We don't update our current goals and wishes to reflect reality, so now our priorities and goals are all messed up as well. This is particularly an issue when we aren't critical about our own recent actions, like within the past few years, maybe even months. A good example is the pre- and post-pandemic period of time.

Many things in the world changed dramatically over that period of time, some for the better, some for the worse. But one of the biggest risks forgetting about how much of the world has really changed, even over the last five or eight years, is that we skew our reference for the present. Things like remote work and remote learning can be amazing opportunities, but they can also be amazingly isolating. It makes it difficult for young people to learn how to socialize and interact personally. 

I've mentioned that there are now coaches whose only job is to train young people who come into the workplace how to answer a phone call and to give them tips as to why this isn't a scary thing. People say, Well, why would that be scary? Well, because of the immediacy of the interaction of a phone call, and the inability to prepare a response—or even just ignore the conversation. These are things that are all very easy to do in social media.

Also, if you pick up the phone, you don't know who's there, who knows what question they're going to ask. That's a social skill that gets built up over time, and a lot of people miss out on that. But the same sort of difference in history and in experiences is true across many generations, many situations.

I've previously mentioned the intolerance between different generations and even intolerance between peers within the same generation. That period of COVID isolation seems to have had a really negative effect on many people's ability and/or willingness to try and empathize and care for other people.

That should be your first response in most situations, but they just have never been trained on how to do it. When we lose our empathy, we effectively isolate ourselves from the rest of society. That's a really dangerous thing that has many problems. One is that once we start down the isolation path, it tends to build upon itself, making it always more difficult to undo it and to start socializing again. 

Another one is that isolation is a major cause of health decline in older adults, both physically and mentally. Camaraderie brings many benefits, both by instilling a sense of purpose by being part of a group, and also by changing our focus outside of ourselves. When we look outside of ourselves, we generally tend to see the world in a much better light. We're less likely to get wrapped up in our own problems, so we tend to feel better about ourselves and about the world in general. That has many direct and indirect health benefits. Finally, when we lose our empathy for others, all the people around us suddenly change from being potential sources of joy, or at least a neutral influence on our lives, to being a constant source of annoyance.

This causes needless stress in our lives, and shortens our lives and our ability to find joy in everything. Perhaps the biggest problem of living in this fantasy world of the good old days, or, to take the corollary of it, the evil world of the present, is that we stop being self critical for our own history, of remembering when we were wrong, and learning from our past, and remembering why we changed our views. 

This is one of the biggest challenges, because as we age, we often become more defensive for a variety of reasons. Perhaps we start to see some of our friends have passed away or we're concerned about our finances. But when you combine becoming more defensive with feeling isolated, then add in the whole thinking that the world used to be so much better, one can very quickly become extremely jaded and even more annoyed with everything and everyone else who isn't smart enough to think the way that we do. Sounds bleak, doesn't it? Well, the good news is that it's pretty easy to avoid these traps, and the solution is almost easier than the problem. 

Remember what caused the spiral of unhappiness? It starts with thinking about the good old days, revisiting our memories, thinking about how great things used to be. You know, Things used to be cheaper. People were friendlier, and all those things, and it's taken from a view that's leaving out all the bad memories. 

A good place to start correcting these false memories is by talking over some of these memories with friends or relatives—not in terms like a police investigation, but casually, just for fun, start talking about it. Make sure to take notice of how much the other people's recollection probably differs from yours.

You say something like, Remember that old blue car we had? and your cousin says, No, it wasn't blue, it was red. Or you're talking together and you say, Remember when Grandma cooked the turkey at Christmas and the stove caught on fire? and your brother says, No, it was on the grill. It was the Fourth of July, remember? And so it goes. You'll probably be surprised at how much the details differ, which is the first big hint that what you remember is more of a good story than a historical record. 

Now think about how annoying everyone else in the world has become. Now stop and think about how else you could view them. We talk often about reframing things, and it's still up to you to reframe every situation in the best possible way. Maybe they aren't so annoying after all. Maybe you're perceiving them that way. 

Then you're sitting at the traffic light, and you hear this kid next to you in his car. They're playing that stupid rap music so loud. Think about how many times when you were growing up, your neighbor used to come and complain to your parents about how loud you'd play Jimi Hendrix or Eric Clapton or, heaven forbid, Black Sabbath or Johnny Winters. Maybe the kids now aren't so different after all. 

This next step is really very important. When you think about how that person thinks they're so cool because they're so much better than everyone— different, because they're playing their own music and they're playing it so loud that everyone has to see how better and different they are. 

You should instead just chuckle to yourself about how some things never really change. Because remember, we did it. Our kids did it. Our grandkids are doing it. Everyone wants to be unique. We were like that. People still are like that. The older generations have been complaining about the younger generations since the time of the Romans and the Greeks. It's documented. Probably before that, too. 

You might be saying, Okay, so everyone isn't totally annoying, but how can people be so rude and foolish all the time?  Is it that they're really rude and foolish, or is it that they've had some really bad examples on how to act? Who are those examples that they've been looking at? Perhaps was it their parents they've been looking at? Or maybe it was their grandparents they've been looking at? That would be us! I'm often appalled at the number of inconsiderate drivers I observe who are our own age. I'm sure they'll be telling all their friends about all the crazy drivers on the road as they merrily block an intersection when the light turns yellow or stop right in the middle of the road because they didn't hear the GPS and so they just stop and try to figure out the directions. 

The best way to lead is by example. Don't forget that each one of us has the potential to be a good or a bad example for everyone else around us. You might be saying, Yeah, Jim, but there really are a lot of inconsiderate people these days. This is where some things really have changed with time, partly due to technology and also to the economy. A lot of regular-looking people who superficially seem to be doing pretty okay are really struggling to make ends meet financially and in their personal lives. I have a work friend. He lives out in the greater Seattle area and he works as a lead engineer, like me. We were talking about things that—I'm just guessing at the numbers—but what he spends for daycare is close to a week's worth of salary— for daycare for his two children!

And of course, if you follow the housing market at all, Seattle is one of the most expensive housing markets in the neighborhood. I'm guessing this set of combinations, as well as the other stresses of life, probably bring a little stress into his life, too, and probably make him a little cranky sometimes.

So, starting off from a point of empathy and kindness, rather than one of judgment, will still tend to serve you well in most situations. Yes, maybe some people are just inconsiderate, but the reality is the wealth divide has been and continues to grow year after year. There are many people struggling to make ends meet who superficially look like they're doing okay. Certainly, holding a little grace for life's minor transgressions can go a long way to reducing the stress in your own life and other people's lives as well. 

That brings us to the final ways in which we can really start to live in the present moment while still appreciating and honoring our childhood memories. The first is to remember that our current views and actions are the result of decades of learning and modification. Our views today are different than they were a few years ago, and probably even a few days ago. But everyone learns life's lessons in a different way, at different rates, and at different times.

Instead of scoffing and saying, Well, that's what they deserve for believing that the government would do this, the business would do this, that some country's leader would say that. Whatever we think that we're so wise about and understand better than everyone else, remember, each of us got to where we were by traveling down a long and bumpy road of errors and filled with life's lessons. 

Instead, we should be pleased at everything that we've discovered. But we should also certainly hold a lot of patience and grace and empathy for those who are still learning. When we look back at our memories, in most cases, we probably weren't nearly as smart as we think or remember ourselves being. I can think of many circumstances and situations where, if I look back and think about what was going on at the time, I find myself substituting my current beliefs into that past situation.

But when I look carefully, if I tie it to some other event that I know happened around that same time, I realize what I really was thinking at that time—and you can assert whatever embarrassing or silly thought or belief that we tend to hold when we're in our teens, in our twenties, in our thirties—and now we look back at them and think, how much smarter we were back then.

But we weren't. Again, it's our brain tricking us. We were thinking all those same foolish thoughts that young kids do today and had to learn our way through life just like they're doing. So, clearly, it's okay to learn and grow, but we have to remember that it's worth learning, and learning takes time. It's easy to look at other people and laugh about all the things they don't know, but it's much more difficult to look at our younger selves.

Have the self confidence to also laugh at our younger self and all the things we didn't know at that same age. Honor your memories. Just remember they probably didn't happen quite like we think they did. Enjoy the unique aspects of the good old days because they truly were many things that happened in our lifetimes that had a huge positive impact on the world and how we live in it. They should be remembered and celebrated. But also remember to take a critical look at those good old days.

Remember that everything wasn't perfect, and oftentimes we were just exchanging one problem for another. Then you'll be better prepared to look at the present and the future with much clearer eyes, and to learn to see the many good things that are still around us, and to recognize the challenges that still remain. Most importantly, you have to have realistic goals for the future and make choices that lead you to the life that you envision. 

That's it for the evening. Remember, even though the world has changed and will continue to do so, there's still many wonderful things that come about to make life more enjoyable and comfortable.

Don't ignore all the good because you're comparing it to a past that didn't really exist. It's fun to think about the good old days, but don't forget the memories are often better than the reality. 

Your homework (always optional) to think about some things that you were absolutely positive about that happened in your past. Write down the details, the situation, the colors, the smells. Write down as much detail as you can remember. Then talk about that situation with some friends and family. Make notes of how their memory differs from yours. Extra points if you make it into a game. Tell people what you're going to do, and everyone can secretly write down the details of some particular situation or event. Compare notes and laugh at the differences. 

Extra extra points. If you then take that experience and use it to help form more realistic expectations for the real future so that you won't be disappointed when the real world doesn't live up to the past that you imagined. 

So that's it for the evening. As always, we talk about the many wars going on in the world. There’s a list of links for places to support at UKR7.com. You can also donate to World Central Kitchen at WCK.org. They provide food to areas of disasters. There are a lot of things going on in the world.

There are active wars, wars impending, police actions, elections that happened where the leader just decided that he didn't like the outcome and said the elections are different than they were. The actual winner just emigrated to Spain the other day for his own safety. There's a lot of stuff going on in the world. It's worth it to keep that in mind, and that helps us to appreciate all the good things that we do have here. A lot of people love to talk down the country. I won't get into why that may be, but the reality is that we live a life that most people can't dream of. 

As we often say, one of the best ways to care for yourself is to care for others. If you can donate to any of these causes, great. If you can donate to a local cause, great. If you can't, great. Just smile at somebody, make their day a little better, and make the world a little better place. 

As always, thank you for stopping by. If you found something interesting or useful, please pass it along. Please subscribe. Hit that like button. If not, please send me a comment as to what you'd like to hear.

Have a great week. Remember to live the life that you dream of, because that's the path to true contentment. Love and encouragement to everyone. See you next week on 7EveryMinute and 7EveryMinute.com. Thank you.