Why you long for a past that never really existed...

Have you found yourself longing for the past lately? Maybe you once had a better job, a more fun and understanding partner, and closer friendships, while today your work feels unfulfilling. Your partner's flaws outweigh their strengths, and you find yourself wondering why you no longer see your friends. And on top of that, doesn't the world today feel like nothing but trouble? like everything is falling apart, unlike years ago when it all seemed better. You may feel like an unfortunate passenger of time, watching your life grow more dreadful as the years go by. And the more you recall those times long gone, the less you want to be in the present. Because back then, happiness was so normal, while today it feels hard to find. You're not alone. Longing for those old days is common. The problem is though that our minds aren't all that reliable. In many ways, they deceive us, presenting us with a past that never really existed. And this human flaw comes at a great cost, not only to our happiness, but also to how we treat one another. This video explores a toxic, misleading form of nostalgia that is alluring, but can also be dangerous. My name is Stafon. If you enjoy my work, you can subscribe to my newsletter on Substack. You can also support me on Patreon and my books are available on Amazon. Thank you, and I hope you'll enjoy this video.

Imagine an abusive marriage. The husband drinks too much and sometimes becomes violent. There's no physical intimacy. They argue often, but never talk it out. They have children, but they rarely visit. And it's been like this for years. But then at the ripe age of 65, just before his retirement, the husband gets a phone call from his doctor who tells him exactly the news he feared. The cancer has spread to his vital organs, and he only has a couple of months left to live. As is often the case at funerals, there's a speech listing all the good things about the person while leaving out the bad. The people close to him know that it doesn't represent the man in the coffin, but they keep silent. Years later, the wife talks about her deceased husband with praise. She remembers the good moments, the laughter, the way they made it through difficult times together. She lights up when she speaks of him. And so, in a strange way, his death made their marriage better than ever before. It's very common to remember the past differently and much more positively than it actually was. It's a phenomenon known in psychology called rosy retrospection. We can experience it regarding abusive ex partners, toxic work environments, lousy vacations, or fake friends, thinking it wasn't all that bad. It was actually quite good. 8 years ago, I cut off contact with my father. And even though I know it's for the best, I had these relapses of romanticizing the relationship we had. But these memories are deceptive, mostly presenting the good times and the good feelings associated with them as a collection of snapshots on the wall. It's not that these things never happened, but they do not represent my past with him. We also see rosy retrospection with people with an addiction. They may glamorize the times in which they were using, thinking about how good it felt or how they bonded with other users. but completely leaving out all the regret, guilt, pain, despair, hopelessness, and attempts to quit a highly destructive substance. Today, we also see rosy retrospection fueling a longing for an earlier period in a nation's history, a time when the streets were safer, the economy stronger, and people kinder. When the country, at least in memory, was a better place to live. Maybe it's true. But was the past really as glorious as we remember it or as we're led to believe? We might be romanticizing a few things. So why do we tend to memorize the past better than it was? And is there a purpose to this cognitive bias?

I did that says my memory. I could not have done that says my pride and remains inexurable. Eventually, the memory yields, wrote NZ in Beyond Good and Evil. Even though the past is gone, we still carry it with us into the present. In my own environment, I've noticed how much people cling to it. They talk about what they did and how they were perceived, and they wear it as a badge of honor. Being the toughest guy in high school can still shape the identity of a 50-year-old man. So can being the class loser. The past matters. It tells the story of who we are. But what if we're truly honest about the past and our story isn't all that great? What if it's embarrassing, shameful, sad, and on the whole hardly make sense? Our cognitive biases about the past are wellstudied. Within the field of psychology, we can find several psychological phenomena that contribute to our reshaping of the past. For example, there's the fading effect bias, which means that negative emotions fade more quickly than the positive ones when we think back on our past. And so when we look back on past events, we see a polished version of what truly happened. Why we do this exactly is still a matter of debate, but the leading explanation is emotional regulation. If we remembered negative experiences as vividly as positive ones, we would experience way more distress, making it pretty hard to function and basically just go on with life. My grandfather seemed to do this all the time. As a survivor of a Japanese concentration camp and former child soldier, he often spoke lightly about horrific experiences, sometimes with a smile. Perhaps it was the only way he could speak about them after not doing so for most of his life. So in that sense, it's a form of self-p protection. Another one is cognitive reconstruction in which we rebuild our memories again and again based on current convictions and ideals on how we see the world at that moment or on how we want it to be. It's literally creating a cohesive story out of the clutter of our memories that fits our current worldviews. However, it's not an accurate representation of how things truly were. Cognitive reconstruction is closely related to another phenomenon called self-enhancement, which uses an adapted version of the past to maintain a positive self-image. We do this by amplifying our strengths and downplaying our weaknesses. And so we might also leave out some bad experiences and magnify the positive ones. There's much more to these theories and I would encourage you to look them up if you want to know more. But as far as I see it, they point in the same direction. namely that we consciously or unconsciously reconstruct the past in the present in ways that seem favorable to us. It serves a purpose. Whether it's coping with past trauma, aligning the past with how we see our present selves or the world, or just making the story of our lives make sense and give it meaning. It's also noteworthy that not everyone experiences rosy retrospection. People with depression, for example, tend to remember the past worse than it was. And pessimistic philosophers like Amil Churan and Arur Schopenhau didn't romanticize the past at all. Quite the opposite. Or perhaps they recalled it exactly as it was. So Rossy retrospection seems to be more of an optimist's refuge. And based on research, the vast majority of people are optimists. But aside from the benefits we gain from our collective refuge from reality, there are also dangers.

Imagining the past more positively than it really was. And longing back for these good old days is one thing. Taking or withholding action on these delusions is another. Suppose you cut a bunch of toxic narcissistic people out of your life. good riddens. However, over time, you begin to amplify the moments you had with them while glossing over the occasions when they crossed your boundaries, the times they disrespected you and the chaos you invited into your life by associating with them. And then there's a text message, then another, and before you know it, you're hanging out again, only to remember why you cut them out in the first place. Another example is glorifying a previous career or job which I began to do some years after becoming self-employed. I remembered chatting and joking with co-workers, being part of something bigger, earning a stable wage, and having less stress. I was working in a bank, by the way. But I also conveniently forgot how soul destroying it all was. these KPIs, lean manufacturing, personal development plans, and don't even get me started about the angry customers, office politics, gossip, pointless meetings, and douchebag middle managers. And how many times do people fall back into old habits like substances because they long for the good parts of those days, leaving out the bad, even though the bad so drastically outweighs the good? And how often do people fall back into unhealthy routines simply because they glamorize the short-term comfort, pleasure, and fun they once offered? Likewise, how often do we book the same vacation again only to be confronted with all the little annoyances we conveniently left out of our rosy memories? and how many people today allow themselves to be deluded by populist leaders promising to resurrect a nation that wasn't quite like how they portray it. But perhaps one of the most tragic consequences of longing for a past that never really was is that we end up depreciating the present. The only place where life actually happens and facing the future with cynicism as nothing can ever match those imagined golden days. And yet without minimizing the difficulties of the present, most of us still have something. Be it a loving partner, a child, a friend, a pet, a hobby. But time and time again, we choose false nostalgia over them. And that's painful, not just for us, but for those we reject in the present as well. Thanks for watching.