Forgetting What Lies Behind

The way you view your past will affect your present and your future. So say Stanford psychologists Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd in “The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life.”

According to the authors, people who are past-positive (who focus on the good things of the past) are more healthy, happy and less anxious than their past-negative friends (whose painful life experiences keep playing in their minds).

I scored as a past-positive on their Time Perspective Inventory, but I’ve noticed that when I become anxious (say, reading one of these depressing retirement books), I shift to past-negative—I start remembering those times I felt trapped and hopeless.

The good news, according to Zimbardo and Boyd, is that while we can’t change our past, we can reinterpret it (finding the positive messages and lessons that improve our future). And we can overwhelm those negative memories with positive ones—they recommend a gratefulness journal.

OK, I know it’s new research, but the advice sounds suspiciously familiar. Philippians 3 maybe? Look it up.