The Way It Wasn’t - Grasshopper

We all have the ability to remember, but many of those memories go through a sanitizing filter before they reach our conscious awareness. It’s sorta like the filter people put on their social media pictures to make them look 20 years younger.

We tend to remember the good more than the bad and the emotional  before the mundane. The “good” memories tend to be the ones where we’re the hero or heroine of our own story. The “bad” ones spotlight who did us wrong or something that rekindles sadness.

But whether good or bad, recollections are filtered. You’ll know that for sure if you drill down on the memory and notice that it really wasn’t the way your mind presents it.

In most cases, it wasn’t as good or bad as you remember, because it got airbrushed over time only to present the highlights or lowlights, not the complete picture.

In short, we’re remembering a moment in time and characterizing it as the whole picture under the broad heading of the “Good Old Days” or “Bad Times at Ridgemont High.”

This deletion of large portions of the way we claim it was makes for great story telling, but it’s mostly fiction, leaving many of the facts on the cutting room floor.

If these filtered memories bring you joy, keep them coming. If, on the other hand, they spotlight sadness, you may want to broaden the picture so that sadness is only part of the story, not the whole experience.

The highlighted memory may be devastating, but the whole time period wasn’t. This is more than a reminder to think of the good times too; it’s more about not getting caught up in past ado.

When you find yourself with one of these isolated memories, let it be a springboard to this idea: It’s not happening now. This mantra is a way to bring you back to the present instead of staying stuck with the way it wasn’t.

All the best,