What is our history? We carry our history with us wherever we go. We contain our history within us. Our history is an amalgamation of both our subjective viewpoints, influences, and environment factors effecting us. History embeds many lessons within itself. We can learn from our past experiences, we can also observe and learn from events around us. Either way we need to understand our history in order to move forward in life. We need to know where things start, how things effect us. We need to be aware that life has many lessons within itself, we also have many experiences, we can learn from all these lessons and experiences.
Past events can have profound effect on how we see life and also they can impact our world view. Therefore our decision making is greatly influenced by past events. This is because we have an emotional reaction towards past events and their influence on us. Another aspect of our history is the story we have been told throughout years and how these story about ourselves and our environment impact us. There is past events that shape our decision making and also there is our personal journey that shapes our perspectives.
History in general is both subjective and objective. Subjective in the sense that it depends on what we make of it and our perception of the events, historians start a narrative about the past and how the events unfold. And objective in a sense that events happen and exist regardless of our viewpoints. However in terms of our life history subjectivity and objectivity are both essential part of our meaningful historical interpretation.
What is important is that we need to learn from our history. We should be able to consider our experiences to help us make better informed decisions. Life in general is not fair sometimes and therefore our readiness to face life is an important factor. What is fair is the decision and power we have over the extent life effects us – this means that at every situation we have the power to make decision about our life and the way it will impact us internally. This does not mean that our choices and our power to apply those choices are necessarily fair. However it means that the extent we let events impact us in our life is dependant on us.
History is another tool in our toolset. Whether in a macro level, where we learn from other experiences; or in a micro level where we learn from our own experiences. We need to use history to our advantage, and be cautious not to make the same mistake twice. There is learning about society as a whole in one hand and study of individuals within the society on the other hand. When we study our role in the society we need to be aware of the effect of the society on us as well as our effect on the society. In one hand there are social facts that need to be considered and in the other hand we as individuals shape our society. Therefore when learning about our history we need to consider all these factors.
Overall our perception shapes our reality, there are random events that can happen throughout our life time. But our state of mind and the lens we control, influence and see our fate are the determining factors in our way of living. We make patterns and connection between events, between ourselves and other. There is an element of trust in these connections, we make make mistakes as we trust our judgement and as we trust others. However we live in the shadow if we don’t trust at all because then nothing will have meaning in our life.
In general learning from our history and letting ourselves learn from our experiences are important. We learn as we think, feel and behave differently in our life. Our knowledge of life is through understanding gained by experience. This is either direct experience or the experience of others. A greater understanding of ourselves helps in gaining better knowledge of our environment and how we are in certain situations.
You may have heard the phrase history repeats itself. I think this is true to the extent that our past feelings, thoughts and behaviours are influencers of our future decisions. We therefore need to learn from past experiences of ourselves and others in order to make authentic decisions. This is because there is no such thing as an ultimate decision as if we hypothesise that there is duality to our decisions. When we take one decision then the outcome will impact other outcomes and therefore we go through a certain path. And at the opposite end if we take another decision then the outcome will be different. But what matters is that the decision is as authentic as we are. So as our authenticity grows our decisions also become more and more appropriate accordingly.
It is important that we compare our life and our history with ourselves and not others. This is because we only have control over ourselves and our life. If we compare ourselves to others then we go through life being dependant on others life. This puts us in a weak position as we start wanting and desiring things that we don’t have. There are certain imitation to our life and our experiences, these limitations are dependant on our gene, personality, and environment. Accepting our circumstances and where we are standing is very important in the way we face challenges in life. We need to be vigilant in our dealings and at the same time trust in our intuition. There are many circumstances in life where our intuition is the main factor in our decision making. This means that other than keeping a positive outlook, learning from our experiences and focusing on ourselves, we should also trust in our judgement and ultimately trust in ourselves. We need to believe that we are in control of our life and what life throws at us.