REMEMBERING THE PAST

Winston Churchill said, “A nation that forgets its past has no future.”

Without the memories of our past, we cannot operate in the present or even think about the future. And we would undoubtedly repeat our mistakes because we would lack the memory of the consequences from our experiences.  Memories are the building blocks for learning from mistakes and making decisions.  This helps us to build our character and personality. So, what would we do without our memories?    

That’s why it’s important to preserve our memories from the past.  It’s a way of preserving ourselves and our culture.  Culture is what holds our communities together – we share what we have in common—commonality of our memories tied together builds culture.  It is the commonality of preserving our memories from the past and then making new memories combined with old memories.  That is, bringing back the magic from the past and making things better based on memory of those experiences.   

There is nothing “old” or “old fashioned” about remembering the past.  The more memories we can preserve from the past will result in keeping us alive and resilient.  There are many ways by which to do that. 

Photographing: Maintain scrapbooks or online libraries where you can store your favorite photos of significant events in your life. Maintain a “family photo” series so that future grandchildren and great grandchildren will see what life was like.

Journaling: Maintain diaries of your daily experiences or combine journaling and scrapbooking and keep diaries of what life was like in the past.

Memoirs: Write a personal or family memoir to preserve for the future.

And then there is music!  Music provides a backdoor into the mind and it connects old memories with emotions, keeping old memories and feelings alive.  It is fun and positive. 

So, let’s Rock N’ Roll!