a shared memory is worth a thousand words

sometimes, silence is golden

Reality is not what we think it is.  People are not who we believe them to be.  Memories are not real, and past only exists in memories.  The future doesn’t yet exist, despite that almost everything we do is directed by what we want the future to be.  And were it not for all that then the present would be very different from the Now we create for ourselves.

Suppose your much loved partner tells you something dark, difficult, and perhaps reprehensible about their past?  The usual reaction, particularly the way men usually react, is to take that thing in your partner’s past and bring it right into the present.  We can get angry and jealous about something that happened before we even knew our supposedly much loved partner.  Retroactive Jealousy is real, powerful, and destructive.  People also get angry with people who hurt their partner in the past, and then because they can’t do anything about that they get angry with their partner instead.  Dragging the past into the present changes the Now, and then most likely goes on to change the future as well.

Conversely we can take our wants, needs, dreams, and desires, which only exist in an infinite number of possible futures, and drag them right into the present to create expectations.  We may have a great relationship with someone, but then we think of the way we want things to be, and create for ourselves a slew of unrealistic expectations.  What we have is what we have.  What we want and desire only exists in the future.  Basing the Now on what might happen in one of an infinite number of possible futures is a recipe for insane unhappiness.

Some ancient cultures believe that the Past, Present, and Future exist and happen all at the same time.  Quantum physics pretty much says that too.  But if we live in the days of future’s past we are going to get very unhappy very quickly.

To avoid being continually angry, jealous, miserable, resentful, and single it’s important to live in the Now.  To do that we have to learn acceptance and understanding.  We have to stop being jealous and judgmental.  We might want to learn about meditation and mindfulness.

Trust me.  I have made every single mistake I’ve talked about above, and then some.

I am very lucky I am not alone and lonely in this Now.

~

jack collier

jackcollier7@talktalk.net

lonely, unloved, alone