The good old days had problems tooCalm

unbry

The good old days had problems too

A short book about believing life was better before and won't be again

28 chapters11,844 wordsAbout 54 minFirst edition

What's inside

·Before you startThis is a short book and you can read it in two or three sittings. It's about one habit of mind, and it's a quiet one. Somewhere in your past there's a…2 min
1Nineteen ninety-sixThere's a photograph on the fridge, or on your phone, of a summer. You're twenty-three, or thirty-one, or nine, and the light is doing something the light…2 min
2Why the good old days feel trueBefore I argue with the golden version, I want to be fair to it, because it's made of real things and it's doing something for you. It really happened.…2 min
3"It really was better then"Start with the belief that holds the whole thing up. Not that the past seems better, but that it was, and that your memory is simply reporting the fact.…2 min
4"I remember it clearly"You'd say the fade might be true of other people, but your memories of the good years are sharp. You remember what you felt. You remember being happy.…2 min
5"Everything's got worse"The golden version has a wider form, and it's the one that gets talked about in pubs. Not that your life was better, but that the world was. Safer…2 min
6"People were kinder then"Here's the most common form of the decline story, and the one that feels most like plain observation. People were kinder. More honest. Held doors. Knew…2 min
7"Young people today"The decline story has a favourite target, and you've probably said it and probably heard your parents say it and possibly heard your grandparents say it…2 min
8"Everyone I know feels the same"There's a reason the golden version is hard to give up, and it isn't a private one. Everyone agrees. Say it at a dinner table and you'll be nodded at all…2 min
9"I was happier then"Leave the world alone and come back to you. Whatever the surveys say about strangers, you know your own life, and you were happier then. You can feel that…2 min
10"Nothing now will ever match it"The sigh has a second half, and it's the half that does the damage. Not that it was good then, but that nothing now, or later, will be as good. The best…2 min
11"It's harmless, it's just nostalgia"Some readers will say I've made a small thing into a large one. Everyone goes back. It's a bit of warmth on a cold evening. It's harmless. Tim Wildschut…2 min
12"Things were simpler then"Here's a version of the golden version that sounds like plain description. Life was simpler. Fewer choices, fewer screens, fewer things to keep track of.…2 min
13"I've lost the people who made it good"This chapter is different from the others and I want to say so at the start. Some of the good old days were good because of people, and some of those…2 min
14"I'm just being realistic"There's a way of holding the golden version that presents itself as toughness. You're not sentimental. You're realistic. Things were better and they've…2 min
15"If I let the past go, I lose it"Some readers will feel the argument as a threat. If the golden version goes, the past goes with it. The summer stops glowing. The people in the photograph…2 min
16"The best years are behind me"The sigh has a version that's about age rather than about any particular year. You're forty-eight, or fifty-five, and the shape of life seems clear. It…2 min
17"I can't help comparing"You'd agree with all of this and say it doesn't help. The comparison runs on its own. The song comes on, the sigh arrives, and you didn't decide anything.…2 min
18What the golden version costs youI've argued the mechanism. This chapter is the bill, and it arrives quietly, which is why it's been allowed to run. The present, unlived. Every hour in…2 min
19What it does to the pastThere's a cost that lands on the good old days themselves, and it's the one I'd most like you to see, because the golden version is supposed to be how you…2 min
20Put the problems backThe next three chapters are the method. This one is the chapter 1 exercise, made permanent, and it's the hardest of the three because it works against the…2 min
21Visit, don't live thereThe past is for going back to. Wildschut's studies said so, and I believe them, and this chapter is about going back in the way that does the work and not…2 min
22Judge today from the same distanceThis is the chapter that turns the argument round, and it's the one most people find changes things. Ask what will glow. Take today, or this year, and ask…2 min
23The decisionYou've got the argument and the method. What's left is to decide, and this time you can do it in one sentence. Put the problems back, visit and come back…2 min
24Real losses, illness, a country that has changed, the better job, the better marriage, and when it's more than the pastThe rule holds every day. Some cases need their own paragraph, and some of them are cases where the sigh is partly right. Real losses. Chapter 13 said it…2 min
25When you spent Sunday in nineteen ninety-six againIt'll happen. A grey Sunday, a song, the album, and three hours later you surface with the sigh fully formed and the afternoon gone and the person you…1 min
26A Tuesday in twenty thirty-sixThere's a photograph on a fridge, some years from now. It's of a Tuesday this year. You're in a kitchen you complained about, with a child who was small…2 min
·NotesThis book gives general information about an everyday habit of mind. It isn't medical advice or bereavement counselling, and it's no substitute for a GP…3 min