Yearning for yesterday?

Who does not have this feeling? Sitting with your family and recalling the wonderful memories of the past.

Getting nostalgic is delightful. But to some, memories become an obsession. They prefer living in the past. I know a few people who would keep pondering over the past. Often do I think if it is really necessary to shed tears over yesterday. What’s gone is gone. Change is the only permanent thing and one has to live with it.

For instance, smartphones have made the latest entry in our lives. What if technology hadn’t progressed? Life without WhatsApp doesn’t sound cool, does it?

A few days back, one of my aunts shared long forgotten pictures of the family on a WhatsApp group. It seemed as if everyone was spellbound as there wasn’t any response for a moment. The silence was so profound that I could feel the emotions beneath it. And then the volcano of sentiments erupted.

The group that I considered dead (no offence), had suddenly sprung to life. It was literally flooded with responses. Had it not been technology, nobody would have been able to relish those pictures.

Even I miss my childhood sometimes. When all I had to do was to run and laugh a lot and someone else was in charge of my hair. But that does not mean that I would stay a child forever. It surely was the most beautiful phase of my life, but I would never go back to yesterday, I was a different person back then.

Isn’t life all about moving on? How wonderfully do we transform from a child to adolescent to adult to elderly. It is very wisely said, “Stop crying over the past, be at present and look for the future.” Instead of yearning for yesterday, one should strive to live their best today.

(Published in The Gulf Today on May 7, 2016)