Past, Present, Future
This past weekend, I was able to get away to the mountains for a few days of skiing and relaxation with my family. It was much needed as it feels as though I’ve been going 100 miles an hour since the year started. Over the course of the weekend I noticed a few things that made me think about how fast time goes by. I watched a couple playing with their toddlers on the steps of the pool as my kids swam on their own and realized it wasn’t long ago that we were the ones on the steps with our kids. As I skied through the terrain park on the way to a run, I went right past all of the jumps I used to launch myself off of. And after not shaving for a few days, my beard grew in with an alarming number of gray hairs.
It’s easy to reminisce about how things used to be, to notice all of the changes and have a sense that life is passing you by. The problem comes when we focus too much on the positive of how things used to be. There is a phenomenon in which the memory of negative times or unpleasant emotions tends to fade faster than that of positive times and positive emotions. It’s actually called: “FAB” (Fading Affect Bias). This occurs because we are naturally inclined to view the events in our life in a positive light. While generally positive, this mechanism is also why we indulge in a night of heavy drinking a week after the hangover that caused us to swear we would never drink again, and why we can sometimes find ourselves repeating painful mistakes.
The irony of this is that it in an attempt to think more positively about our life, it can lead to disconcerting feelings or a melancholy mood in our current state. If we spend too much time thinking about the past, we lose sight of all the good that is in front of us today and the exciting possibilities for the future.
The key for me has been a constant balance of past, present and future. I know I’m at my healthiest when I spend time evenly in these three categories. I want to look back enough to appreciate what I’ve been through, where I’ve come from and the people that have helped me along the way. I want to be present to what is going on right now in my life, appreciating all I have and the people around me, and I want to look ahead to where I’m going and all the possibilities that exist, being mindful of what I need to do today to get there tomorrow. As I became overly focused on the past this weekend, getting older and how different things are now, it was a good reminder to put some focus on the present and future. I especially appreciated that I could actually ski with my children at their current state - something that wasn’t happening when they were playing on the steps of the pool. And I really smiled at the thought of many more ski days together in the future.