What’s done is done and what’s gone is gone. One of the life’s most valuable lessons is learning how to let go and move on. Looking back at your good memories is fine but never let the past stop you from moving forward.
“Your life is written in indelible ink. There's no going back to erase the past, tweak your mistakes, or fill in missed opportunities. When the moment's over, your fate is sealed.But if you look closer, you notice the ink never really dries on any our experiences. They can change their meaning the longer you look at them.
Klexos
There are ways if thinking about the past that aren't just nostalgia or regret. A kind of questioning that enriches an experience after the fact. To dwell on the past is to allow fresh context to trickle in over the years, and fill out the picture; to keep the memory alive, and not just as a caricature of itself. So you can look fairly at a painful experience, and call it by its name.
Time is the most powerful force in the universe. It can turn a giant into someone utterly human, just trying to make their way through. Or tell you how you really felt about someone, even if you couldn't at the time. It can put your childhood dreams in context with adult burdens or turn a universal consensus into an embarrassing fad. It can expose cracks in a relationship that once seemed perfect. Or keep a friendship going by thoughts alone, even if you'll never see them again.
It can flip your greatest shame into the source of your greatest power, or turn a jolt of pride into something petty, done for the wrong reasons, or make what felt like the end of the world look like a natural part of life.
The past is still mostly a blank page, so we may be doomed to repeat it. But it's still worth looking into if it brings you closer to the truth.
" I never look back darling, it distracts the now."
Maybe it's not so bad to dwell in the past, and muddle in the memories, to stem the simplification of time, and put some craft back into it. Maybe we should think of memory itself as an art form, in which the real work begins as soon as the paint hits the canvas. And remember that a work of art is never finished, only abandoned.”
― The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
" I never look back darling, it distracts the now."
Maybe it's not so bad to dwell in the past, and muddle in the memories, to stem the simplification of time, and put some craft back into it. Maybe we should think of memory itself as an art form, in which the real work begins as soon as the paint hits the canvas. And remember that a work of art is never finished, only abandoned.”
― The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows
"I am an extremely sincere individual. I am sincere, to a fault. One of the many things that I have come to realize, to learn, is that sincerity must be reserved and given only to those who deserve it.
And one must save one's emotions, channeling them only to the people who are worthy of it. One must not throw one's pearls to the pigs."
— C. JoyBell C.
“If I had done this, if I had said that, in the end you are always more tormented by what you didn't do than what you did, actions already performed can always be rationalized in time, the neglected deed might have changed the world.”
― Damon Galgut
" When looking back doesn't interest you, your doing something right."
“I hurt myself deeply, though at the time I had no idea how deeply. I should have learned many things from that experience, but when I look back on it, all I gained was one single, undeniable fact. That ultimately I am a person who can do evil. I never consciously tried to hurt anyone, yet good intentions notwithstanding, when necessity demanded, I could become completely self-centred, even cruel. I was the kind of person who could, using some plausible excuse, inflict on a person I cared for U a wound that would never heal.”
- Haruki Murakami
“But it is perhaps not such a good idea to look back — all the stories say so. Look what happened to Lot's wife. Best not to look back. Best to believe there will be happily ever afters all the way around — and so there may be; who is to say there will not be such endings?”
― Stephen King
“Forget the past, it's gone, but glance back occasionally to remind yourself where you came from and where you are going.”
― Chloe Thurlow
“You could climb to the top of the world and jump into the deepest of ravines, but if you don’t have someone to share it with you’ll always be looking back.”
― Saim Cheeda
“We look back on our life as a thing of broken pieces, because our mistakes and failures are always the first to strike us, and outweigh in our imagination what we have accomplished and attained.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“If you’re always looking back at what you’ve lost, you’ll never discover the treasure that lies just up ahead.”
― J.E.B. Spredemann
“Every moment is precious, even the ones behind me that I often reflect upon with a reserved smile. However…I seldom look back, only forward in anticipation of the next greater now.”
― Carl Henegan
" The only time you should look back is to see how far you've come."
" Leave the past where it belong. Don't look back when you know you shouldn't."