Is the Past Good or Bad for Us?

This post is a response to Nelson's comment on focusing on the past:

"Today, during class we had a class discussion about All Quiet on the Western Front and war in general. We talked about different aspects of war, we talked about WWI, WWII, Desert Storm, and wars in general. After the discussion I came to the computer to write my reflection (about a subject that I already forgot) and Lucien told me that he was pretty annoyed about the fact that everytime we talk about war it goes back to past crimes and leaders. He told me that he was pretty annoyed about us not talking about wars NOW; it always goes back to Alexander, it always goes back to Hitler; WWI. Me, I believe he is right in the sense that war is NOT a thing of the past. War is currently waged in the Middle East, and in Africa, but for some reason we talk about Hitler and not Bush (or the US senate for that matter). We talk about the Holocaust and not Darfur, and even though the Holocaust was bigger, Darfur is present. And even though history is important; I believe that the present is more so."

In terms of decisions made in the world, we seem to be more successful when we refer to the past to make future decisions. We cannot understand how to make political decisions in the present if we know nothing about the past and have no experience in the matter. If we don't pay attention to the past, we will never make smart decisions for the present and future. It's like trying to walk a catwalk for the first time without a rope. You won't make it! Making decisions based off knowledge from past experiences is also like maturity. We mature because we stop doing things or thinking certain ways when we were immature. If we don't look at the past, then we're babies forever.

One thing about the past that is actually bad is how we feel about things that happen. The emotions, if we hold onto them, will stay with us forever. Our stress and worry about the past affects our present and future life, even though there is no reason to hold on to the bad memories since it's not happening! I think the problem we're having with the issues today and why they're repeating comes from this fact. The people of the world hold on to memories that make them afraid of the present and future instead of looking at the memories (which cannot affect us because they're not happening) and making intellectual goals by assessing the mistakes.