E.S. Poetry & Writing

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

I spend more time thinking about the past, not because I want to, but because it’s efficient. The past doesn’t knock. It just shows up, sits down, and starts replaying moments like it’s trying to catch me in a lie. People say the past is behind us, but for most of us it lives closer than that. It loops in our heads, not out of nostalgia, but out of habit. The brain doesn’t archive what hurt. It keeps it open in another tab.

Most people who think a lot about the past aren’t stuck there. They’re trying to understand themselves. The past is where our reflexes were installed. It’s where we learned what to expect from others, what love costs, and how careful we need to be to keep it. Those early experiences didn’t just happen and disappear. They shaped how we listen, how we argue, how we brace for disappointment even when things are going well. At some point, those patterns stop being called survival and start being called personality.

Psychology backs this up. Memory exists to protect us. It replays what mattered, especially what hurt, because the nervous system is designed to prevent repeat damage, not to promote peace. The problem is that it doesn’t always update the threat level. So the past cycles. Not because it’s still happening, but because it once did. Many of us carry old alarms that still go off in safe rooms, and then we wonder why we feel tired all the time.

The future, by comparison, is abstract. It’s full of promises, goals, and motivational quotes that assume we all start from the same place. But we don’t. The past has context. It explains why some people trust easily and others double-check exits. Why some people speak freely and others rehearse. Why some people crave closeness while simultaneously preparing for loss. The past gives us a map, even when we wish we didn’t need one.

Thinking about the past doesn’t mean living there. For many people, it’s how they make sense of who they are now. It’s how they trace the line between what happened to them and what they chose to become. Most people don’t come out of their past unmarked, but many come out more aware, more empathetic, and more careful with the soft parts of others. There is a quiet strength in that, even if it doesn’t look like progress from the outside.

I think a lot of us hope we are better because of what we survived. Not happier. Not untouched. Just more human. If we think about the past more than the future, it’s not because we don’t believe in what’s ahead. It’s because we’re still honoring the fact that what came before shaped us, and we’re trying to decide, with intention, what deserves to come with us and what finally gets to stay behind.