What Bothers Me and Why?

I’ve never responded to one of these WordPress prompts, so I decided to reply to one of them today. Lately, I have found myself enthralled by the passage of time. Admittedly, this is not the first time I have contemplated such thoughts.

Everything seems to change. It’s not necessarily good or bad, and it’s quite healthy to experience change. It’s a part of life.

With that said, I think there’s something in humanity that longs to maintain the good experiences of one season, digging their heels into the metaphorical ground as they approach the next. Without question, past experiences are massive sources of good memories.

However, in many ways and for many people, the past is a place of hurt. It’s easy to romanticize the past, overemphasizing the good in favor of better times than the present. Then there’s the other side of it.

The future can be a shiny object, an object of obsession. The future certainly holds good possibilities. At the same time, it’s easy to not feel content when that future arrives.

Perhaps it won’t meet the high expectations that preceded it; the future can hold pains as merciless as past pains. What truly bothers me is that as a human it is incredibly easy to romanticize the past or focus far too much on the future.

It’s less natural to remain present in the moment. We can’t go back to the past nor ultimately control the future.

What we can do is cherish the good memories of our past while learning from the pain; even though we can’t control the future, we can look to it and prepare without fixing our thoughts on it.

The key is to not miss out on the present because it’s only the present for a moment.