Bloganuary – Day 5

Daily writing prompt

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

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I thought I had a very cut-and-dry answer to this.

My instinctive answer to this was: I definitely spend more time thinking about the future than dwelling on the past. For the simple reason that I cannot change anything about my past, but I can change my present and future.

But I asked ChatGPT to understand why people may like to think about their past. It shared many reasons some of which made me rethink my perception. Do I also like to think more about my past? And I realised I do, but not for all reasons.

Sometimes, it is about nostalgia. I love going through pleasant memories from my past. I am never one to share a lot of pictures, but I try to take a few on every trip, every nice occasion. And one of my favourite things that I always look forward to is the Photos app on my phone that creates a highlight reel of my best pictures from a trip or an occasion. I now have a physical photo album as well where we add one meaningful picture from every trip. Every now and then when we go through the album, it’s a real mood-changer.

There is another reason that gets me to think about my past. I am a reflective person by nature. I love to introspect on my day, my week, my year, and I try to see what I could have done better. What should I change going forward? Therapy sessions unlocked in me an ability to do this a lot more productively, and with much less judgment. Sometimes, I also do this to just give myself a proverbial pat on the back. This sort of an retro exercise (which I have a draft blog in progress by the way) always helps me put things into perspective and look at my future with a little more resolve, confidence and clarity.

I also like learning from other people’s histories, oral or written. I see it as a way for me to learn from other people’s mistakes without having to make them on my own. However, I have also learned to appreciate their context a lot more.

I distinctly remember three phases of my book reading.

• My first phase is when I was at school, and I used to love reading novels, primarily as a means to escape reality.
• My second phase was after college (I read little in college) when I read a lot of business books and autobiographies. At some point, I realised that all the advice in such books were highly context-specific and often grounded in the same set of first principles.
• In my current phase, I am reading a lot of history books and detective fiction. In this phase, I think I have come around a full circle in that I again read primarily as a means of escapism.
  • Detective fiction is obviously easy to see why it’s escapism.
  • History books, in a convoluted way, have helped me see hope in a world that’s abound with a lot of negativity, hatred and pessimism. History tells me that these things have happened before, and at some point, whether late in my lifetime or after me, things could turn for the better once again.

However, I don’t think I ever dwell on the past to feel rooted to a self-image, culture or identity from my past. I think of culture as a much more evolving way of life rather than a set way of doing things. My life has taken me through multiple phases, each of which has shaped my way of life, my daily rituals, and much else. I wouldn’t change any of this just to feel rooted to a way of life that has long passed me by.

All in all, I do think about the past a lot, but only as a means to changing my present and my future. To feel better and do better for me, my life, and the people around me. I am curious to see if others also changed their self-perception while writing through this prompt.