Look at the past based on how it was, not based on your feelings about it

Our brain likes to mess with our memories.

It's a proven fact that most people either remember things that never really happened in their life, or added/removed details from their memories for all kind of different reasons, like forgetting a certain unpleasant moment, or to make everything seem like it was better than it actually was.

In the past I had people telling me that the things I remembered weren't actually real, and that whatever happened when I was young wasn't at all the way I remembered it. I'm still not sure if some of the things that I remember actually happened the way I think, or if my brain decided to change little details to make me happier or something like that.

Sadly, not a lot of people know about this, and they think their memory is perfect, especially when it comes to the things they like or hate about their past.

They never consider that something amazing that happened in the past may not be as great as they remember it, or that something "terrible" that happened wasn't as bad, and they just altered the memory to make it seem like it was some sort of a tragedy.

The biggest problem appears when people start to use their inaccurate memories as arguments for why something was good or bad, and why the present is crap compared to the past simply because they remember the past being a lot better, which is not always the case.

One example would be people talking about how amazing childhood was, about how cool it was to go out and spend time with their childhood friends, about how amazing it was to play in the dirt and just have fun, and how great that time was without technology.

While I can agree with them when it comes to how amazing childhood was, I also have to take into consideration that fact that some of those people don't remember things properly. Yes, childhood was awesome, but not every aspect of it was as amazing.

Playing outside in the dirt was great back then, for some people, but it surely wasn't the best thing ever. It was a great option, because you didn't really have anything else to do inside the house 10 or 20 years ago when technology wasn't around, but that doesn't make it the most amazing thing ever.

Living without technology may seem like a great idea if you think about your childhood, because you remember all the fun you had with your friends outside, and how little use you had for phones or computers. However, you probably don't remember all the times you had to spend time inside your house, being bored, without anything to do.

Spending time with your childhood friends, eating all kind of stupid little things and going out in a field, running and laughing was, probably awesome back then, because you were young, and your imagination made everything look a lot better, like you were chasing dragons and things like that. It was also one of the very few things you could've done to have fun. Nowadays, running in a field and eating 3 berries that are barely grown isn't as fun as you probably remember it to be.

Our brain alters memories to make everything seem a lot better or a lot worse than it was. Falling with your bike and hurting your knees probably wasn't as bad as you remember it now. That time when your mother slapped your face because you did something really bad probably wasn't even painful, and her hand barely touched you, even though you can vividly remember the horrible pain you felt.

All those altered memories can make us look at certain things a little too subjectively, and use bad arguments to justify some of the things we say or do. It's wrong, and we should be aware that we may not remember everything from our past as accurately as we'd like.

Try to remember that the next time you want to complain about how shitty life is now and how the world is going to hell, because, if you look at some of the good things that happened throughout the years, we're doing a lot better than we were 20 years ago. Technology is a lot better and it helps us take care of time wasting activities, we now know more about food and what we should eat to stay healthy, medicine evolved a lot, certain diseases are treatable today compared to even 5 years ago, and so on.

The past may look great for some people, but that doesn't mean it was. It may simply be the fact that your brain made you believe that everything was awesome, even if it wasn't.