I’m at that age. The age where people start to look back and remember how wonderful the “old days” were. The town was better. The food was better. Families were better. Life without smartphones was better. Everything was better. For a long time I had a tendency to agree and to enjoy bashing the present.
But the passage of time causes forgetfulness. Some days were good. Some were bad. For a lot of us many of our days were horrible and few were good. I’m glad that I remember mine as having been mostly good. However, I think that we have this automatic mind-mechanism that dims the negative expereiences. (There’s a name for that in psychology but I want to sound a little more poetic and less techincal.)
Maybe my friends that praise the past and bemoan the present really did have a care-free childhood. Maybe their lives really have been charmed. I doubt it. But some of them are very vocal about the “good ole days”. It could just be talking-point syndrome.
Do not say, “Why were the old days better than these?” For it is not wise to ask such questions.
Ecclesiastes 7:10 NIV
That’s a rather obscure verse in the bible. I have to learn to adjust my mindset so that I’m not longing for the past. Instead of doing that, I should be looking forward, preparing for the future. Do I want to make the future like the past or do I want to see all things made new? Do I want to join in on the new thing that God started and that he’s still rolling out? Where will my focus be?
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.Isaiah 43:19 NIV
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
Galatians 5:17 NIV