You can't fix the past

Change is not the only constant

From the day of your conception, and even before that, you have been changing. That’s what makes knowing who you are so difficult. You are always changing.

Blowing this up to cosmic proportions, the universe and everything in it is always changing. Even structures that are seemingly permanent, as defined by having a life of millions or billions of years, are changing and will eventually come to an end.

It’s quite ironic we naturally tend to resist change, when it is not just core to what makes us human, but core to the entire universe.

Greek philosopher Heraclitus stated, “Change is the only constant in life.” Yet that is not entirely true. There is one other thing that is constant: the past. By the very nature of it being gone and unable to be altered, except in the sense it is added to and that our memories are malleable, the past is permanent.

Viktor Frankl puts it like this (in ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, p123):

“The only really transitory aspects of life are the potentialities; but as soon as they are actualized, they are rendered realities at that very moment; they are saved and delivered into the past, wherein they are rescued and preserved from transitoriness. For, in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything is irrevocably stored.”

The evidence of something occurring in the past may become obscured or cease to exist, but that it happened in the past, even if arguable, becomes immutable. We evolved from apes, Jesus Christ walked the Earth, Donald Trump was president of the United States.

When it comes to change and our past, we treat each in one of two ways. We crave fortunate change and fond memories; we resist uncomfortable change and unfortunate memories.

We allow our minds to spend much time forecasting the future and replaying the past. With exception to doing so mindfully for preparing or learning, there is no point to this. As Sam Harris often notes, the only moment that truly matters is this one.

From my personal experience, surrendering to the inevitability of change and fully accepting the past, warts and all, has been instrumental in overcoming the mind’s tendency to wander forwards and backwards. It has also been a key part of the process to overcoming anxiety and depression. More on that another day…

Cover image: Photo by photodisc on Freeimages.com