Is it Dangerous to Look Back

[Isambard]

Bit of personal one this but i thought some people may be interested in what I have to say and my view. Some may even find it unpalatable I don't know.

I'll start off with me, I have many photos of my travel days, when I was younger - in my mid twenties - I am now 38. I hardly ever look at them, the reason being is I don't want to look back. 20 seconds have now elapsed as an extreme example just now and I cannot get them back, life has ticked away, gone. Nothing you or I can do anything about. So it got me thinking this year. I think its dangerous to look back - the supposed good old days lets say - you often hear people say 'It was better back then' I think its a load of old poppycock and to be honest even if it isn't you CANNOT DO ANYTHING about the fact. 

So i live for the moment, I forget about my separation, I forget the fit bird that recently stopped talking to me. Because life moves on, its the future - This is it. The more you look back the more you waste your life thinking about something that will never come back . So its useless moping around - bitter about my ex-wife bitter about the lovely new girl that didn't want to be with me. It was meant to be. I just think thats how life should be like. Trying to better yourself each day, thinking positive.

So the real reason about the post, its my Dad - well my Step Dad. Him and my mum where married for 25 years - loyal both to the end. About 4 years ago Mum passed away after a very long illness - She was in her early 60's. Obviously the family, me and Dad were devastated. 

Going forward 4 years, my Dad still talks about Mum every other sentence, I literally can be in his company and 50% of the conversation will be memories. Now a year on I could understand, maybe even 2 years and perhaps 3 but now it's 4 years and growing and he still has not got over it. I don't know what to feel, we don't get on all that much, but whenever I see him I say would you ever entertain another relationship (i think it would do him good) but he always says no. He busies himself with work (he is a very talented and intelligent person, but it saddens me that he still has feelings for Mum as much as I miss her too. I always say to him Mum would not want you like this - and I really mean it. That said I have never had a partner who died in a relationship so what do i know.

Has anyone had or got the same feelings as me. I just think in life you have to move on come rain or shine. The more something gets you down, job, relationship, death, family, friends the worse it is . You end up wasting life almost thinking about how things were.

Can anyone relate?

Isambard

[bendy]

For the you bit - are you me?  Not far off age wise and lost a fit bird  Hey ho.

For your dad then imagine you stayed with fit bird and built a life, family, goals and dreams.  And then it all goes from a decision none of you made.  Sometimes there is no point in moving on, I have no experience of it but would say you're 'happy' to 'live the moment' rather than 'move on'.

From death till us do part is really sometimes till death brings us together again I guess, and I find that to be church ridden religious claptrap but do see it in reality.

Look back if you feel you need too IMO, or at a younger age if you can capitalise on it, such is the sadness of reality.

 

[SarahBell]

is he depressed, dpes he get put much?

 

my little sister witters on about maybe mum has a jumper of dad's she would like turning into a cushion. no. ffs. its been 5 years. 

[Isambard]

No he does appear to be Sarah, I just think it would do him good to either have another relationship or to do other things - i guess which he is doing.

I suppose the crux of my argument is you have to life for the moment, I don't think in hardly any cases its worth cling on to memories personally or for someone else after a period. 

 

Your here one time and one time only. Perhaps a little cold hearted

[honkydonkey]

I don't look at old photos. They make me sad for some reason. 

[Isambard]

1 minute ago, honkydonkey said:

I don't look at old photos. They make me sad for some reason. 

I just dont think its good form, its difficult to out my finger on it. I have to agree him you - its probably a hint of sadness in a way.

[chronyx]

It helps to know where you're going if you know where you've been.

Look back, just don't live there.

[SNACR]

No, you will turn into a pillar of salt, just ask the bible.

[The Masked Tulip]

We are all individuals. All different. Eventually we come to learn that we are the sum of our life experiences. Every thought, word, deed and memory shapes who we are. You become more aware of this the older one gets. We all change. None of us are the people that we were 10, 20 or more years ago - well, not if we have lived, experienced and grown.

In the case of your step-dad he is clearly still missing your Mum and his partner, friend and lover for those 25 years of their lives together. Some people have to move on almost immediately and find others. But for plenty of people there is only that one person and will only ever be that one person. For your step-dad that person was your Mum. He has 25 years of happy, loving memories.

It is a credit to you that you are concerned about him. But you and he are two different people. Let him be who he is. You never know, if you ever find yourself in a similar position as him 25 or 30 years from now you may well then think the same way that he does now.

Yesterday is now further away than the furthest planet. But yesterday made us who we are today.

[uptherebels]

Pretty sure there is no right answer here. Everyone deals with things in their own way . Don't think ones right and ones wrong . 

[Riedquat]

I suppose it has its advantages in making it easier to ignore all the stuff that's got crapper, but that's an "ignorance is bliss" argument. Too many people doing that collectively creates the environment in which rubbish can breed and the good gets thrown out with the bad. All too often people who say things like "look forward, embrace change" etc. just appear to be saying "shut up, put up, and turn off your brain." It feels like a modern form of "know your place serf."

On personal matters I think it's rather different, and best not to dwell too much.

[Isambard]

33 minutes ago, The Masked Tulip said:

We are all individuals. All different. Eventually we come to learn that we are the sum of our life experiences. Every thought, word, deed and memory shapes who we are. You become more aware of this the older one gets. We all change. None of us are the people that we were 10, 20 or more years ago - well, not if we have lived, experienced and grown.

In the case of your step-dad he is clearly still missing your Mum and his partner, friend and lover for those 25 years of their lives together. Some people have to move on almost immediately and find others. But for plenty of people there is only that one person and will only ever be that one person. For your step-dad that person was your Mum. He has 25 years of happy, loving memories.

It is a credit to you that you are concerned about him. But you and he are two different people. Let him be who he is. You never know, if you ever find yourself in a similar position as him 25 or 30 years from now you may well then think the same way that he does now.

Yesterday is now further away than the furthest planet. But yesterday made us who we are today.

 

Wise words thanks Tulip.

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

Some people are backward focused, my wife for example who seems to have an excessive reverence for her long deceased grand parents, but can't seem to plan for her own long term - I keep telling her to put more into her pension. Others, like myself are the opposite, being totally forward focused and not dwelling on things.

I think it is just different perspectives.

 

 

[Sledgehead]

You use the term 'moving on', which is another way of saying 'progressing'.

Which of these best fits your view of "progress"?

 - buying a new car each time one fails;

 - learning how to fix your broken car.

Put another way, is owning a string of new cars 'progress', or merely a manifestation of the fixed state "unable to fix cars"?

If your purpose is to experience as many cars as possible, owning a succession of cars is progress. If your purpose is to understand how cars work, learning to fix them is progress.

Now forget cars and think about life. Sure, we have just one. But why are we here? What is our purpose in life?

If we don't know that, how can we know how to progress in life?

Or, seeing as we can agree that the terms 'progress' and 'move on' are synonymous, how can we 'move on' if we don't know the purpose of life?

In the midst of all this uncertainty, it's not surprising that some find meaning (or 'purpose') in relationships. Intense relationships help us  understand who we are. And that may well be all the understanding  - all the knowledge - one can ever truly achieve. Exploring the feelings we have for those closest to us, even feelings of loss or bereavement necessarily adds to that understanding. Even in loss there is 'progress'.

By contrast, physical prowess will wain with age. memories will blur as the years pass. But knowing who you are. That doesn't merely remain. It grows as you explore your feelings. Even - perhaps especially - for those who are no longer here.

In that sense, there is nothing necessarily retrograde about people wanting to keep hold of the feelings they have for those past.

[ccc]

I think it's fine to look back with a smile - as long as you don't get obsessed by it and forget about today.

Do new things all the time. 

Today I'm going for a swim in the sea then Thai Boxing. Why not.

[200p]

I think it might be a generational thing. In your fathers generation, it was a very much low exposure to everything. Travel was expensive, media was expensive.
A handful of people are core to your life. You know, old England, leave your front door open, say hello to the Milkman. The BBC was gospel.

In your generation - 30-40s - you have shown to be able to move on.

Today the next generation have tinder, facebook etc. We're very much a disposable society - I think people have more to occupy themselves, and can move on more, as they don't let themselves get in too deep.

 

Just an idea, don't take it as gospel.

[Turned Out Nice Again]

I think "looking back" is one of the sweet consolations of a life well-lived, at the right time; not for the young, certainly.

 

[The Masked Tulip]

5 hours ago, ccc said:

I think it's fine to look back with a smile - as long as you don't get obsessed by it and forget about today.

Do new things all the time. 

Today I'm going for a swim in the sea then Thai Boxing. Why not.

Thai boxing? Is that what you are calling it now?

[Riedquat]

8 hours ago, Sledgehead said:

Now forget cars and think about life. Sure, we have just one. But why are we here? What is our purpose in life?

If we don't know that, how can we know how to progress in life?

Or, seeing as we can agree that the terms 'progress' and 'move on' are synonymous, how can we 'move on' if we don't know the purpose of life?

My cynical view of the human race thinks that people partially realise that, haven't got an answer, so think that they need to "progress" to find it. But they're just driving without a direction, not knowing when it would be a good idea to carry on, when to stop, and when to reverse, but they'll keep driving onwards, right to the point of going over the edge of a cliff.

There's no reason to think that there's any particular "why are we here", or any purpose other than those we choose to give ourselves.

[drunkincharge]

Isambard. You say your step dad talks of nothing but your mum to you when you see him. Is he like that with all people or just you. Maybe it the case that you remind him of her and he wants to talk to you about her as you share memories of her. Just a thought.

[Errol]

Is it dangerous to look back?

Surely the answer depends on what is behind you.

[juvenal]

We are born astride a grave. It's merely a matter of time before we drop into it.

[DTMark]

Welcome to the mid-life crisis.

I can look back at photos of myself from when I was at school, even those of myself when I was in my twenties, and to an extent it's like looking at a fictional work as opposed to something real that actually happened.

I have learned a sort of "fondness", I suppose, for my younger self and would like to think that with age came wisdom even though I don't feel quite so indestructible.

I've also had to deal with deaths since then - father, grandmothers, pets, all harrowing, expressions of emotion not experienced before and with a ferocious intensity for which I was not prepared.

I still can't look at photos of one of the cats we lost to cancer three years ago. It just hurts way too much. Perhaps it will always be that way. My mind has "resolved" the other losses, but not that one, for some reason.

NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) very much begins with the idea that "what you have done until now isn't relevant, start here and set about being who you want to be".

However sometimes we can benefit from looking back because of our "default learned personalities". A situation you face now might be a new situation and one with which you have not had to deal before, but our personalities have a certain predictability about them. So we can look back and see that the last time something similar happened, we reacted in an extreme or disastrous way, and learn from that: to do it differently this time. The scenario might not seem related but the way our brain maps patterns can be rather abstract.

We can also look back at successes that we had, and sometimes, see that those might have come from doing something "outside the box", maybe taking a risk in the spur of the moment which led to a different path and one that still benefits us now. 

That expression "with age comes wisdom" isn't about getting better at the answers on TV quiz shows, it's about making the most of your own experiences and learnings.

 

[winkie]

 

[ccc]

2 hours ago, The Masked Tulip said:

Thai boxing? Is that what you are calling it now?

Watch yourself or I'll come down to Wales and break my foot on your face !! 

I'm almost Bruce Lee now ffs