Is Nostalgia Good for You?
The pros and cons of harking back to the good old times.
What does the word ’nostalgia’ mean to you?
If you are the Cambridge Dictionary, nostalgia is a ‘feeling of pleasure and also slight sadness when you think about things that happened in the past’.
While the dictionary’s definition makes perfect sense I prefer Doug Larson’s take on it:
Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.
So, the good old days had rough edges, did they?
Nostalgia comes equipped with a handy pair of rose-tinted glasses. This means that when we look back we usually only see the good times. And, it’s hardly surprising, is it? After all, who wants to dwell on periods of their life when things were not so great? Why would you?
Herein lies the danger. Sometimes you need to recall the bad times. Focussing only on the good times makes you miss the warnings from the past.
Learn from the past don’t live there
Those people in the UK who voted to leave the European Union did so recalling the days when Great Britain ruled big chunks of the world.
