Was a part of a major conference recently. The event was a runaway hit, but as it goes with any event involving a large number of people, we had a lot of challenges, differences, failures, internal issues etc. End of all, it was a great event and I have a lot of beautiful memories of it.
Yesterday when I was talking to the friend about watching the video recording of all the events, he said – “I don’t want to watch the videos”
“Why?”
“Because I have so many bad memories of it that everytime I watch the video, I will remember those bad things”
“But there are so many good things, speeches, learnings from the video”
“Still, I can’t enjoy it…”
What has happened here is that my friend is now going to lose out on the good memories because he is holding on to the bad ones. Everytime the discussion about the videos comes up, he can remember the bad things.
Why is it that we all like to hold on to the bad experiences rather than the good ones.
I fell in the trap once when I went to watch the movie with my girl friend. Just before we entered the movie theatre, we decided to pick up some pop corn and soda. It was taking long for the snacks and she did not want to miss the beginning of the movie, so she rushed into the theatre and asked me to get the snacks. I remember feeling very upset about the whole thing --- “She thinks that movie beginning is more important than me” “She doesn’t care if I have to stand alone over here” “I wanted to spend time with her” and so on… at one point I felt like leaving the snacks then and there and let her watch the movie alone… Of course, finally we watched the movie together and enjoyed it.
She didn’t hurt me purposely and probably I was acting childishly and overreacting. Of course, we patched up later.
We would have seen a number of movies together but this one experience is what I remember more clearly than any other experience (Of course, without the hurt)
I’m sure I would have done similar mistakes where I have unknowingly hurt her.
Lets do this exercise, take each one of your relationships, try to recall atleast 3 overwhelmingly positive experiences in this relationship. Now try to recall any 3 negative experiences. I can bet my moustaches that its easier for you to recall the negative experiences.
That is a trap.
More important issue is that we hold on to these negative experiences and allow that hurt to spoil our present. Even if there is a slight disagreement, we pull out all the past experiences to show where all the other person has been wrong.
This is not just about relationships…
Just because I failed once in the exams doesn’t mean I should write off myself. I have seen so many students going through this. They wrote an exam and failed. Now while preparing again, they go through self condemnation, considering themselves failures and writing themselves off. Hey, if you could pass all exams always, then they won’t be exams.
In business, if 3 sales calls go bad back to back, you start considering yourself as a bad salesman.
We all hold on to the hurt of our yesterday and destroy or today in the process.
“Does that mean we should totally forget the past?”
“No”
We should remember the past, because the mistakes from the past will make us wiser. What we should drop is the hurt.
By holding on to the experience and the learning from a past event, I become wiser.
By dropping the hurt, the memories of my yesterday can no longer ruin my today.
By dropping the hurt, the memories of my yesterday can no longer ruin my today.
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