In the age of a highly nostalgic generation, it's hard to accept change. Change is good though. If we didn't experience change, we couldn't experience nostalgia.
There's something interesting about this nostalgic experience... In Psychology, we refer to this as the positivity bias. This effect refers to how we look back on the past with a positive lens rather than a negative one. This effect is at its strongest within the older generation. It explains why older people often reflect on their childhood as a joyful experience rather than a hard, traumatic experience.
In short, changing allows us to experience opposition between good experiences and bad experiences. In all that we do, we are able to choose our consequences. I, for one, am thankful that we can change. So much good can come from it.
Because of change, we can become better people, and our enemies can become our friends. Because of change, we can grow up, we can move on, and we can overcome anything. It is our ability to change that empowers us to become who we are meant to become. The best part is that we can decide what we are meant to become. We can break the cycle of who we are in order to become who we want to be.
It's easy to want to go back to when things were better, but why not look towards the future with as much fondness as we do the past? Often, I find myself looking forward with dread. As much as I love planning and organization, I stress and stress about upcoming events and tasks instead of focusing on what I can get out of them.
What's the point of doing anything when we dread everything we do, but look back on those same events and want to go back?
We can choose to enjoy the events we experience now.
Change is empowering. If we learn to embrace the power of change, we can look forward with excitement instead of dread. We can grow from the challenges we are presented with instead of being weakened by them. Nostalgia is powerful. If we can find a way to look forward in the same way that we look back on past events, our motivation will increase!
