Seize Today, not Yesterday

Bill Brown ... Xiamen University

"'Do not say, Why were the old days better than these?' For it is not wise to ask such questions." Ecclesiastes 7:10

Seize Today, not Yesterday (Why Nostalgia is Debilitating)

Unlocked Doors in China. A Chinese Professor at Xiamen University complained to me as I walked home, "Someone stole my bicycle. That's the third one this year! No matter how I lock and chain them, they're stolen."

"Yes, I know it's a big problem," I said. "I guess I'm lucky, because I've had the same bicycle for 12 years."

The professor was astonished and said, "No one is that lucky! Your God must be watching out for you!"

If only I'd said that myself, for indeed luck had nothing to do with it, as I quickly learned. We parted ways, and less than five minutes later I reached home to find--that my bike had been stolen! I learned my lesson.

I knew, of course, that "luck" did not play a part in my life. I've lived long enough to see that Hand many times. But perhaps I had taken it for granted and needed a reminder, but we forget the help we've had in days past, even as we forget the problems. And this is good; why dwell in the past and wallow in our problems. But when we forget the past, we sometimes also idealize it, and this affects our perception of the present and future--and that is a problem. For example....

Longing for the China of the 50s...

In the late 90s many of my elderly Chinese neighbors complained about bicycle theft, and thievery. Almost as if reading a memorized script, half a dozen elderly gentlemen told me, "Ah, I miss the 50s! Back then we never locked up our bicycles. We did not even lock our doors. And nothing was every stolen. Those were the days!"

What he had forgotten was that no one had anything to steal! Even in the late 80s, bicycles were a luxury. In the 50s, people walked, not cycled--and they were lucky to have shoes, and food in their bellies. The Great Leap Forward, while good in theory, was a Big Fall Backwards for many people, and many people retold such ancient Chinese jokes, based on truth, as the Ming Dynasty Tale about two brothers sharing a pair of shoes:

If the Shoe Fits (Ming Dynasty, adapted from "Magic Xiamen--Guide to Xiamen")
Two brothers pooled their funds to buy a pair of shoes and share them. The older said he'd wear them in the day and the younger could wear them at night. To get his fair share of time, the younger ptu them on every night and walked and ran the entire night, returning home each morning exhausted. When the shoes were worn out the older brother said, "Want to buy another pair?"

"No thanks," said the young brother. "I need to get some sleep."

Nostalgia is Unwise Solomon warned against asking why the old days were better than today--but he did not give a reason for the warning. Most of Ecclesiates follows a formula: don't do A because of B. But here, he simply says don't engage in nostalgia because "it is not wise to ask such questions." Perhaps "it is unwise" is good enough reason because nostalgia was obviously fruitless. Or maybe he had enough reasons to fill a book and just summarzied it: nostalgia is unwise.

Nostalgia is Debilitating. The problem with nostalgia is that it is not only unwise but also debilitating. It locks us into an imaginary past, one that never existed, and distracts us from the very real hope of tomorrow if we grasp the opportunities today.

Carpe Diem: Seize Today, not Yesterday. You cannot seize the day if you are hanging on to yesterday. But yesterday was probably not as good as you'd like to think. Who would want to go through puberty again? Or 11th grade? Or that first job interview? But even if yesterday were better, it is gone. There is nothing we can do about it, or with it.

Nostalgia's Guarantee Yesterday may have been okay, but if we hang on to yesterday instead of seizing today, it is certain that tomorrow will be even worse off than today--and then we'll have even more grounds for wallowing in nostalgia instead of embracing the new lessons and opportunities ahead of us.

Bill Brown
Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com