The good old days

These are troubled times. When you pick up the newspaper and turn to the editorials, you might read something like this: “The world is too big for us. There’s just too much going on, too many crimes. There’s too much violence and excitement. Try as you will, you get behind in the race. It’s an incessant stress to keep pace and still you lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. Everything is high pressure. Human nature can’t endure much more.”

Does this sound familiar?

This newspaper editorial sure sounds like it was published just last week. But that’s not the case. I didn’t pick this up from yesterday’s news either. The words I shared with you actually appeared more than a century and a half ago, on June 16, 1833, in the Atlantic Journal. Back in the “good old days”.

This simple, tattered editorial, which goes way back to a hundred and seventy-eight years ago, teaches us a very important lesson that we need to understand. The “Good Old Days” are not really “good and old”. Here’s a reality check: The “Good Old Days” are the Here and Now.

Look up the Book of Ecclesiastes. It is one fascinating book. I call it a handbook for business people. Reading and understanding it would make one wise. In the book, the wisest of the wise, Mr. Solomon, says, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Today’s crimes and violence, and technological advancements may overwhelm us, but these are not new. Solomon was so right –there is nothing new under the sun. I guess what he means is that there are only old things happening to new people.

Reminiscing about the past can be good and romantic, but staying in the past is not healthy. Stop comparing today with the good old days when a haircut cost five pesos, a jeepney ride was ten centavos and you paid two pesos to watch a movie from the Balcony seats.

Understanding that the “good old days” are the here and now makes us focus on the reality of everyday life. Most people dwell on their current problems, get stuck on remembering the good times they had in the past and easily detach themselves from current-day realities. These are the same people who could not function. They cannot move forward because their eyes are still fixed on the rear view mirror. They have not learned from history, and they are condemned to repeat the same mistakes.

More terrible is when people play up how awful current situations are today in order to justify their own lack of productivity and achievement. And these people never run out of excuses on why they cannot be better today compared to their days of the past.

Get real! Face the challenges of the here and now. Learn from history. Do not waste time wishing things and events would get better. Spend time instead making yourself better. Study. Learn. Read books. Consult experts. Attend seminars. Ask questions. Go out of your shell and serve. Make yourself productive and never stop being grateful. Somebody even said, “It’s not happiness that leads to a sense of gratitude. It is gratitude that leads to a sense of happiness.”

Be happy. Be real. And always remember that the “Good Old Days” are the Here and Now.

(Enhance your leadership skills with Francis Kong this April 1. Attend “Level Up Leadership” at the Rockwell Tent. Only a few seats left. Call Pam or Krisselle of Inspire Leadership Consultancy Inc. at 632-6872614 or 09178511115 for further details.)