INSPIRING WISDOM

Forgetting

The past is in a great measure a preparatory course for the present. What we possess today is the accumulation of the past; what we are today is the result of past growth… No one can question the beneficence of the power of memory, yet we find that in many instances forgetting is also a blessing; there are certain states of consciousness, certain reactions, which…would prove of great advantage for one to be able to forget. The memories of the past are precious only when they bear wholesome gifts to the present. But when they are only messengers of gloom, then their message must be interrupted and their mission terminated.

Man's experiences may be broadly divided into two obvious groups, pleasant and unpleasant. Pleasant experiences cheer and strengthen every faculty, every organ, every function of the mind and body. An unpleasant experience, on the other hand, depresses the mind, obstructs the free flow of thought, lowers the vitality, and generates a pessimistic outlook upon life. The failures of the past, if the memory of them brings us humiliation or fear, should be buried with the past, under the dust of time, and not be removed from their graves.

The (material) losses of the past must be buried with the past, they must not be opened afresh, they must not be reiterated in all their gloomy, depressing circumstances, they must be dismissed from consciousness, they must be regarded as if belonging to another self, the self of the past. …the past has developed in us a state of moodiness and gloom, of worry and anxiety; if it has given us a tendency to unhappiness and morbidity; if the past has cultivated in us a disposition to doubt and hesitation and indecision; if the past has made us susceptible to despair and has made us surrender to helplessness; why, then we must break with the past. Not only must material failures be forgotten, but also spiritual ones. Just as one must forget his failures, so must he forget all his sorrow. A sorrow that broods continuously, that is engrossed in itself and shuts out all else, is not sorrow, it is self-pity. The failures of the past should be forgotten. By dwelling on them, man's confidence in the present and hope for the future may suffer. Let the stream of the past sweep away with it all the failures and rankling thoughts of the past. It avails one naught to brood over the difficulties of the past, the memory and mental repetition of past hardships serve but to mar the joy that ought to be found in new experiences.

We must remember that God meant us to be joyful. We must obliterate from our memory, therefore, whatever interferes with this natural joy, we must uproot from the heart every growth of unpleasantness… Of every experience of our past, let us retain in memory only its sweetness, or its joy, or its stimulus toward higher striving. Mistakes must not be dwelt upon, errors must not be refreshed in the recollection, the attention must be centered instead on the greater heights that are still to be climbed and reached. We say that one must forget not only the failures of the past, but also its disappointments.

The memories of the past are gone; they have been carried away by the current of time; they have made room for new experiences, for new events to take their place. …obliterate the past from your memory and adjust yourself to the new…conditions of life; cultivate new sources of joy and inspiration, new foundations of hope and delight… Only that which encourages, only that which yields strength and hope, may be called into action from any corner of our past existence… If…the tone of the mind is optimistic its associations will also be optimistic ones; only the successes of the past will come to memory, only the victories of the past will be revived, only the great and encouraging moments will reappear and breathe again… then the unhappy experiences of the past will not venture to raise their heads…