Can we gain guidance from the past? It seems like a great notion, but wouldn't it be more prudent to abandon silly past understandings I had in light of more mature knowledge I have now about the world? Can I read the misguided idealistic rambling journals I have from my teen years and gain any insight into what I should do now with my life?
though the world has changed since you were a teenager, you are still the same person. reading the journals of your past can help you remember who you are, which is the greatest hint concerning what to do with your life.
When I read some of my old scribblings, I shudder. What a damn fool I was... Oh yeah, I'm still the same person. Well, at least now I am not as judgemental and negative as back then. I have crumpled up and chucked more than one piece of writing, upon reading it years later and being horrified that I wrote it. You can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been. History is the lie agreed upon. The past doesn't equal the future. I wish I had kept a journal myself, that is so cool.
i know the feeling, mollybloom, and i think that's a good question. looking back on my journals from only a couple of years ago is a really difficult project. even more difficult is pondering how ignorant i am even now. if back then, those ideas were perfectly rational, what of my self now? yuck! it seems easier to just discard the past.
yes. it shows your soul progression. lets u look back and realize how you've grown, or enjoy times past had. it's you; you're old reflection. keep it, it'll keep you in memory of yourself. (mine makes me feel smarter)
is this thread a joke? what sort of a question is 'Can i learn from the past?' i mean why else do we even record the past? do you know one of the very few things that seperates man from animal is being able to learn new things from old data. at the same time, i dont think it has anything to do with what you should do with your life, but what you -shouldnt- do with your life. where you should go is up to YOU right NOW. where you shouldnt go is up to everything except right now.
'One thing we learn from history is that we don't learn from history' I forget who said that, but it's sadly true in many instances.
Well, there's two ways to look at this. First, yes, you can certainly learn from the past/old journals, because like Blackguard said, "You can't know where you're going unless you know where you've been." Of course, it is my opinion that, like John Denver sang, "There's nothing that ties me and nothing that binds me to something that might have been true yesterday." You are constantly being reborn in this moment, so your past isn't THAT important. Growth and change should figure prominantly in your life, and don't worry so much about what's already past. You are more than your history. However, you can also use those old writings that you so vehemently disagree with (I just found some of my own that fit that description) to show how much we DO change in life, and that we shouldn't take ourselves or our opinions so seriously, because they'll probably change in the next few years.
No. It's not a joke. I used to morosely reflect on my past but, as of late, all I see when I look back is all the places where I chose something without having a great amount of knowledge about what I was getting into. I mean to say that looking back, I made decisions naievely, and so when I look at my own personal past, I remember nothing that can help to guide my present decisions. I look back and see a confused individual, and I see nothing enlightening to help make decisions about my future now. So where to look for guidance? I used to look to my past self. Then, for good while now, I've looked to God for guidance. But maybe now I need to look at my present self, as well as God, and leave my past self out of it. Does that make sense?
if you are on a path , why worry , why be guided at all ? don't you just keep walking ... well , once i did come to a road divided and had to decide something . in one direction was my old home town and the other went to a town i'd just picked off the map to go to . it works out better for me to live by my dreaming . so where am i ? it feels like home is comfortably everywhere , but at first i didn't like that feeling , then i got drunk on its wine , now i can simply get on with planting a garden where the land is free and the good rain is baptism for all .
In a way, we are today the product of all our past - 'all our yesterdays'. I think everyone learns a certain amount as they move through life. It can be a distraction to keep looking back - solutions that worked before often won't do it now. Part of the problem you have might be that you're looking at this too intensely, thinking about how to find the right guidance and so on - perhaps going over the past too. Often, the solution in such a situation can come from just backing off from it for a while. Perhaps do something different to take your mind of pre-occupations. The solution may then just come. In the end, you can only be guided by your own sense of right and wrong etc. And that too can change over time. What seemed ok in the past may now seem not so great, and what seemed off-limits may become ok. It's only as you are now that you can do anything.
