The Seductive Danger & Power of Nostalgia
I'm sure a lot of people can relate when I say that nostalgia can be a very powerful thing... It's also one of the most contradictory emotions a human being can experience. One can feel a very pleasant sense of nostalgia when reminiscing on good times with their friends, however those same memories can also induce intense feelings of sadness and longing in a different setting.
We've all experienced both sides of the coin. We hear an old song with a friend and are replete with happiness and joy to be sharing the same memories with one another. Then a couple of months later you hear the same song, alone on a dark road. Suddenly the nostalgia turns on you, leaving you depressed and wishing to go back in time. It's a fickle emotion, but one of the most powerful.
Nostalgia can both keep one stuck in the past, as well as motivate them to create a much better tomorrow. Depending on the person and many different circumstantial factors, of course. It's an easy trap to fall into when you're not pleased with the way your life is going. Spending all your time longing for a period long passed, never truly moving forward. I've been there, hell sometimes I still go back. It can discourage you from forging new connections with people, because all you care about are your old relationships. Ones which are long gone.
There's been an abundance of times in my past where I've despised a specific period of time while it was happening, with my eyes in the rear view mirror. Until... that period has passed. Then a year or more later I look back at that time with nostalgia, longing for it. Despite knowing how unhappy I was. It's a very toxic cycle to be trapped in, and discourages true personal growth.
If you can learn to point your emotions in the general direction you'd like to move though, it can be a very powerful tool. I've spent a lot of recent times stuck in a real rut, one which I'm still not fully out of, and the main reason I stopped writing on here for so long. One of the biggest things which was keeping me stuck in the mud was nostalgia. Such extreme amounts of nostalgia that I was rendered completely unable to move forward, because from my vantage point my life would never be as enjoyable as it once was, no matter what I did. Then I learned something... that feeling of your life being really shitty is a good thing.
It tells you that it's time to try something new, and the nostalgia can be used to keep you from regressing. Your life used to be so much better, and now it sucks? That should be your motivation to take things in a new direction. You don't want to be apathetic to everything going on around you, if that were the case you'd be forever stagnant. A lot of the negative connotation which sometimes comes from the feeling of nostalgia is due to a general dissatisfaction with ones life. So anytime you feel this way, you know what you need to do.... It's difficult to maintain such a mindset all the time, and every once in a while everyone falters. But once you learn to let your fears and regrets push you forward instead of holding you back... well that's the first step to truly being happy once again.
I hope anyone reading this succeeds in their journey along with me....