Living In The Past

     As we renew our friendships with friends we haven’t met for years, we sometimes have that uneasy feeling that something is not going well with some of them.

     They may seem to be successful, they may even be living well, without financial worries, but the niggling feeling that they are somehow unhappy and a bit depressed about something prevails every time one talks to them.

     Suspended in time — They seem live in the past. They prefer, and glorify, their own past, and they believe that things are not as good in the present as they were in the past.

     Some others indulge in self-pity. They feel sad and sorry for themselves. They don’t usually know why. But then, self-pity seems to trail the people who love to live in the past.

     Self-pity is an endless mind game that attracts negativity to oneself and causes one to be more depressed. It’s a pandering to our lowest self.

     They probably pity themselves for what did, or did not happen, or should have happened, but didn’t. They pity themselves for what they perceive other people’s actions had on them that set off a chain of events in which they were helpless victims. They blame events and people in their past for their present.

     An unwelcome parasite — We also notice amongst some of our old friends a sense of bitterness. They cling to a few bitter experiences that they have had in the past and don’t let go of them. They let their resentments, anger and unhappiness stick to them like leeches. Even when they are counselled that holding on to bitterness doesn’t do their present any good, and doesn’t make their future better, they allow bitterness to eat into them and tear them down. Bitterness is too rooted in their psyche.

     Bitter people, do not allow themselves to realise that it is their choice, and not that of fate, to let go of those memories. Forgetting is difficult, but, even if they can’t forget, they can still let go. Blame and regret are self-flagellation.

     Invasive species — Regret too, is something these friends can’t seem to shake off. They regret what they feel is an unfulfilled life. Of things not done … things that they could have, or should have been done differently, or, should not have been done at all. 

     Regret too has consequences. Regret is distressful and bothersome, and eats into the regretful person like an invasive cancer cell eats into the tissues of a body.

     A disconcerting consequence of disillusionment, regret and self-pity is hatred. People who indulge in self-pity are often self-absorbed and do not see their own faults, but are keenly conscious of others faults and find it easy to blame, criticise and hate others. 

     Usually, sadness and depression become our life when we live in our past, we get anxious when we think about our future, we seem to forget that we are better off living in the present.

     Separate realities — Pitying ourselves and living in the past can be addictive and can get out of control, like alcoholics. It’s like being in an opioid or alcoholic stupor which dulls the senses and ostensibly relieves perceived pain — but which, in truth, is self-destructive, soul-destroying and separates us from reality.

     However, if the self-pitying, past-living depressive wants to beat the anxiety, depression and loss of control that is brought on by the addiction, just as drug and alcohol dependents, they must want to get better, and tenaciously work towards doing so, and beat back the excuses for continuing to be as they are. They must firm up their resolve and not let the indulgent self, wallow in self-pity and self-justifications. 

     Drifting through the haze — The only way to get out of the morass of self-pity is to look within ourselves and realise that we are self-pitying fools.

     Self-pitying fools. That’s what we are — With this realisation of our foolishness, we can save ourselves from ourselves; we can resolve our own inner conflict by seeing through it and understanding what it truly is, this may perhaps help us redeem ourselves from ourselves.

     The present is significant — Most importantly, the disillusioned self-pityers, who seem to live in the past and don’t regard their present as significant must learn to respect themselves for who and what they are. Not for what they perceive they were, or, were not.

     A WhatsApp message from a friend said: Never think you are nothing… never think you are everything… but always think you are something… you can then achieve anything. This makes good sense for everyone including the self-pity addicts. It gently declares that one must take charge of our responsibility to ourselves. 

     Live in the present and live in peace — A lesson we all learn eventually is that it’s not the past that matters, the past may have made us what we are at present: but we live in the present. The present is where our life is happening. It’s where we live. It’s what we are doing at the moment.

     When we glorify our own past, we deprive ourselves of the chance of living fully in the present which is where we are.

     When we live in the present, we give ourselves the liberty of living in peace.

“When you make peace with yourself, you make peace with the world.” — highly revered Cambodian Buddhist monk and world-famous humanitarian ~ Maha Ghosananda 

Pratap Antony writes on ecology and environment, social justice and pluralism, management ideas and issues,  jazz and western classical music and Indian classical dance.