Last week, I fell upon a blind test video of music from the 2000’s aimed towards French people. Out of curiosity, I tried it and despite getting awful results, it brought back many memories and feelings from back then.
What struck me was that most music which I didn’t like back then felt nostalgically good this time around.
As a result, it made me think of how time distorts our memories in all sorts of weird ways.
We tend to believe time is trying to trick us and because of this and we should be careful of it.
Indeed, we often wish to remember everything clearly and are worried of our memories changing. Sometimes memories are changed for the better but there are those times when bad experiences turn for the worst in our mind.
For this reason, we are afraid of our memory.
Why do we have to hurt so much because of a bad experience? It was bad at that time but not that bad, wasn’t it?
Yet, it is important that you look at it with a positive mindset.
Whether a memory is twisted to make you believe it was better or worse back then, they both have clear positive impacts on you.
If you remember a relationship or any experience more positively than it was, this gives you the opportunity to capitalize on it, appreciate the positive in the past and try to reiterate it in the future.
In such cases, write down how you remember it and what made such experience positive. You can then observe which aspects you can use in your current life to make it even better.
If you remember a negative experience worse than it actually was, you should note what made it so bad.
However, be careful not to look at it negatively. Even if it may have been an awful experience, you are still alive and have moved forwards. This is why you should figure out what you can take from those experiences to avoid repeating them.
Those bad memories will have, at the very least, allowed you to create yourself barriers to protect yourself, which is better than what you certainly let yourself believe.
Some consider that it is important to write down your experiences while they are fresh in your mind so that you don’t have the time to let your mind distort it.
While I do consider this a good practice, it is also very useful to make use of the way our brains work, learn to observe how your memories have changed and why they did in such way.
What impacted your memories? How did you get in such experiences? Where can you improve?
If you already wrote down your experiences back then, compare them with the memories of it. Now. Months or years later.
Appreciate the fake information that your brain gives you. Notice it and move forward being more aware of the way you evolved until now.
This is the only option you have to stop worrying about the past and look towards the future, knowing it will only get better and better.
Yuhakko 语학子 
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