Overcoming Nostalgia: How I Let Go of the Past and Embraced the Present

In this article, I discuss how to overcome nostalgia and just what it is that makes it so bad. Nostalgia can either lift your spirits when you are feeling down, or it can be your own personal prison that confines you to the past.

A. What is Nostalgia?

The Dictionary.com definition for nostalgia is "a wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life, to one's home or homeland, or to one's family and friends; a sentimental yearning for the happiness of a former place or time."

Nostalgia can cause depression when you reminisce on something for too long. Nostalgia is said to raise your spirits when your current situation is bad. However, if you come to a realization that nostalgia is a longing for something in the past, especially something that you might no longer have or do, then you can be worse off than before you started reminiscing!

If you look at your actions, you always live in the past instead of living in the present! Everything you do right now was affected by something you did or something that happened to you in the past. To live for yesterday is bad. You must learn to live for right now and get things done now because, tomorrow may never come.

Nostalgia can in fact cause much ignorance. When you long and constantly think about the past you do not pay attention to what goes on in front of you and you apply old answers to new questions. You do old things in new circumstances. This is not away to live and you can become ignorant to even this fact.

B. My Own Experience

I have had my own experiences with nostalgia. If you read my experience of overcoming the death of a loved one it picks up from there. I was in my junior year of high school! I made three friends very quickly. Through them I became better known. People knew me as a true friend and as a funny guy. It was great times! I had a job that was giving a lot of money and more people to become friends with. My life was complete I felt like. Good times with friends and a great job.

Then, I was fired from my job around the holiday season, and I had no money coming in for a while. However, my time with my friends seemed to be getting better and better. The three friends I made in the beginning of the year were becoming my best friends. It was great times. Four months after being fired, I secured myself a new job. I figured that I should try to get at least one of my best friends to work with me at my workplace. He was hired a week later, and then we decided to bring in someone else we knew. He was hired about a week later! It was great; I could work with my best friend and get money and mess around a bit at work, while, of course, still working!

Then the summer came around, and it was the height of my happiness! People at work appreciated us, and we made friends with people our age! It was great! As you can see that was the third "it was great" I used to describe my experience. What can I say though, it was! Than came August 2004 where that old saying of "what went up had to of come down." New managers where coming in and they were cracking down on the fun we were all having. The fun was putting up a fight for a while however, it did not last. Soon one of our friends left and it was still the two us. It was still good it's not like they both left.

However, then one of the assistant managers started to become "chummy" with my best friend. Soon after, secrets were floating about. My best friend knew more than I, and I was suspicious with everyone that knew the managers in a "chummy" kind of way. Everyone was against me and claimed I was "just being a conspiracy theorist" in the workplace. However, I was right about all I said. Management intended to divide and conquer, and it did so with great ease by "helping out" those they liked and being hard on those they did not like. I happened to get the brute end side of the "did not like" people, Meanwhile, my friend was treated more so as the "liked" people. So I suffered and I saw him enjoying his time at work but whenever they saw me talking with him I was told all the time to go back to work. Whenever I saw him talking, it was often with the "Chummy" manager and they laughed and had a great time.

It is not so much my friends' fault. However, he was being treated much greater than I, and he "worked harder" also. However, when he was not around, I worked just as hard as him to prove that I was just as good and regardless I was taken advantage of and still considered the "did not like" people. I was placed behind a small part of the store upfront by the register, while my friend was able to roam about the store and work on the floor. I stressed the importance and even probed to see if they were doing this because, I did not like working behind the register all the time and asked on several occasions that I be out on the floor moving around. They kept me on the register, I feel because, they knew I couldn't stand working behind the register and being confined to a small space. After all, I am considered the "Not Liked" people. They tried to make my life working there a living hell!

Now the manger that my best friend had become all "chummy" with is gone however, things are no longer the same and they succeeded in there effort to divide and conquer. My best friend I feel, I do not even know anymore because, of all the secrets I felt he never told me as soon as he heard them. I feel that the "good ol' days" are gone for good but I wanted them back so badly throughout my whole ordeal. The only reason why I stayed is to prove that I can go through such a bad time in my life and still be there and standing. Writing this now, I feel it is pointless to try and prove oneself to anyone because; in the end, you're probably going to end up losing them anyway or getting taken advantage of. However, working where I worked has made me wiser. Two things I can tell you right away are to not live in the past because; if you do life can be just terrible. The second thing: Nothing ends, it just changes, and that it is up to you to change it completely for the best!

C. Lesson's From My Own Experience

C1. Recovering

There are three steps to go through when you are trying to recover from nostalgia. Each step is as vital as the previous step. In order to fully recover you need to follow through. The first step is to come to the Realization that everything changes. When you realize this you are in the position to change and move on to better things. Sometimes this realization is shown when something's changed in the world you are living in. With my experience, it is the manger who was "Chummy" with my best friend and the fact he has left that made me realize this. He used to be part of that nostalgic backdrop but once he was removed it took me out of the trance of nostalgia! This is how I came to the awareness of things changing.

Replacing Things You No Longer Need or Want. Replace it with things you need and want. This is the next thing that I am in the middle of doing. It is important to change the scenery of the nostalgic backdrop to a current backdrop. I ask than when you are in this stage please think long-term that way you can use these things for a time to come and will have a longer value to them. In my experience, I was still too young when I started working to have a car and license, in fact for some reason or another, I did not want one. However, that was than and this is now. Right now I should have a car and a license. Thus, I think long-term about this goal.

Setting up a Future and Life You Want is the final step. With these new things and experiences, one should remember to use it now. Make sure you have a purpose for what you get and do not buy things for the sake of buying things. I have not reached this step but when I do in my experience of getting the car I will use it for going to college and going to work. I wouldn't use it as much as everyone thinks someone should with a new item. If you do that you wear it down and when you wear it down you get tired of using it and it does not have a purpose anymore.

C2. The Power of Now

The power of now is an amazing power that successful people always knew about. This is why procrastinators and those who are unmotivated never get much out of life. They feel like if it is not going to work than it is useless to do it or might say "what is the point?" When you do something now you make it more possible for you to achieve it even if you cannot achieve it now. To do something now keeps you motivate to get it done right now! People might say "Later" or "Another day." Do not hold off! That other day or that opportunity may never come again.

In my own experience, it was a snowy and cold day. This neighbor of mine knew very little people and had a lot of money but was too old to go outside and shovel the snow. I said, "I'll ask him last after all, he knows no one so who will help him but me." After I was done shoveling the snow on other properties I finally, made it to the rich old guy's house. However, I saw it done and saw some other kid walking away from the property. I asked the kid if he shoveled the property and than asked him how much he made if he did. He said $50 for shoveling this guy's property. I made $50 after shoveling 5 other people's properties. Moral of the story: When there's an opportunity, you have to take it NOW! There's no "later" with opportunity. However, before you just jump in balance it out the risk may far out weigh the reward!

C3. The Power of Perspective

Another lesson from my experience is the lesson of perspective. It is also called pessimism and optimism. If I looked to the positive in the situations I was in during my nostalgic state of mind I would say I was making money and just gathering up the working experience.

However, what could I say about my friend how can I look positive about my friend while in comparison I am getting a heap of negativity? He gets help from those around him almost immediately meanwhile when I ask for help I have to wait and the customers more so than not do not help as they are impatient and always complain. When you cannot find anymore upside to a negative situation it is what I called "The Absolute Negative." These negatives have no way to be looked around on a positive spin of the situation you are in. Luckily, more often than not every situation has a drop of wisdom to be learned from.

So what can I say about my friend being treated better than me? What wisdom is there? Well, it is the wisdom of unfairness. I have been treated unfairly and could not do anything about it. Even if I spoke up it would not have made it very far because, of the level of division within the store not many would come to my support. You could also say the wisdom in being humble and knowing that it really does not matter how anyone treats you so as long as you know what is important and you treat yourself good.

So you see when you change how you perceive your environment and how you act and think than you know how to overcome nostalgia. When you understand that it is important to do something now than you become empowered and the veil of ignorance caused by nostalgia is lifted!