Trigger Question #08:
Don’t stress. It’s bad for you. Or so you’ve been told. So put it down.
Well, maybe not all of it. Some stress is good for you, the kind that keeps you upright and gets you going. Without that stress, you would be a mere blob, way more than a couch potato.
But what about the stress that keeps you uptight? That’s the stress that you should, well, stress over. I’m talking about the stress that creates your history. We don’t stress over minor things and events, things we easily forget. We stress over what matters, what has meaning for us. The more you stress over something that you feel matters, the more you will think about it. The more you think about it, the more memory it takes up. (Unlike a computer, you shouldn’t rely on RAM, because your ability to randomly-access-memory can be hilarious, if not disastrous.) Your memory, which is basically read-only-memory, is really just your history as you saved it. If you want to remember more, or a different version of your history, you must first create some space.
Now, what personal history do we remember easily? Our mistakes. And so it is that today we recognise history because we are making the same mistakes. New mistakes have no history. Not yet.
What do we know about our mistakes? They weigh us down. They are burdens we carry. Unless we process them and then forget them.
History is heavy. Put it down.
Well, maybe not all of it. History’s purpose is to get you where you are now. But depending on how you see it, history can hold you where you were.
Many of us drag our accumulated history, that which explains who we once were, into our future. Are you really still that moody teenager? No, you’re not! You are not who you were back then. You are not your history.
If you continue as you were back then, you cannot become who you can be next. That’s how your past success creates your future failure. Because you cling to a success that is history. Because you cannot adapt and move on.
“History is bunk!”
So said Henry Ford. Actually, he never said that. What he said was, “History is more or less bunk.” But that’s way too heavy, which is why someone lightened it to “History is bunk.”
Don’t be heavy. Make yourself lighter. Forgive. Forget. Move on.
Welcome to my side of the nonsense divide.
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Quote of the Moment:
“The joke’s on us: that things from our past can hold us so fast.” The Chief Nonsense Officer.
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