A Cautionary Tale: The Past Makes You a Mad Man

I spend so much of my time worrying about what I need to do, an upcoming work trip, what my next six months will look like, what I need to wear for an event in two weeks, to the point that it robs me of the joy of experiencing the current moment. I find it so hard to be present, because my mind is living in a time way ahead. I have had so many joyous moments that I single-handedly stole from myself.

For 2026, I decided I will actively and cautiously stop myself from worrying, from pre-planning and pre-stressing, and live in the moment. To slow down and smell the roses. To catch my sprinting mind by the collar and drag it back to the now.

However, in doing that, I started to notice a different kind of absenteeism, an even more dangerous one. Whilst I was stressing over my goals and future aspirations, I noticed that many people were experiencing the opposite. They were stuck in the past. They kept revisiting and reliving past experiences, talking about them with such vindication as if they had just happened. They would go on and on like mad men, repeating fragmented stories of things that had happened years ago and allowing the emotions to take over their entire body. Witnessing it felt like real-life exorcism.

I also noticed that their recollection of the past was so far off from mine. I began to think I was delusional, that I had a false perception of the experiences and people we shared, now painted so differently on their lips. But then I realized it wasn’t me who was off. It was them. Because in every conversation where they revisited the same periods in the past, the story was retold with a different narrative each time. Their own memory of what had happened changed with every visit.

It’s as if they had relived the past so many times that it had become distorted—unrecognizable even to themselves. The emotions that exploded from their pores were so raw every time, because there was always a new detail added, a different element removed or excluded, turning the whole story upside down. As if every time they tried to remember the past, they wanted it to fit a certain idea they were currently trying to evoke.

The revelation was so astounding to me that I began reading about how memory actually works.

Our brain is incapable of remembering the past in an unbiased way, and every time we try to remember, we lose chips of the truth. The more we revisit, the more different our version becomes from reality.

Read that again.

Every time we revisit our memories, our brain reconstructs them using fragments of the truth only. This reconstruction is influenced by who we are today, our beliefs, our perceptions.

Recall changes the memory itself. Every time you actively try to retrieve a memory, it is permanently changed. It is saved in your mind differently each time, until it becomes completely untrue.

That’s why living in the past will drive you insane. And that’s what I witnessed with my own eyes. People stuck in the past, past trauma, past relationships, repeat it to the point that it impacts their relationships today, the way they interact today. They have reconstructed the past in a way that victimizes them and villainizes everyone else. And what a horrible way it is to live like that?

They become delusional with the idea that everyone is out to get them, that no one truly understands them, that we can’t see the horrors they have been through.

Whilst everyone’s experiences and emotions are valid, it is so detrimental to rescue yourself from this loop of the past, because the loop becomes so horribly far from the truth, it could poison anyone.

It becomes so vile that it seeps into the now. It changes and distorts the way you view people today, and the way you view experiences.

Perspective is everything. And when your perspective becomes imprisoned by a prison you carefully crafted from your own illusions, the world becomes a very scary place.

So how do you save those stuck in that loop?

I learned that you can’t.

No matter how much you try to reason with them, that their memories are false, that there’s more to the story, that they are not seeing things clearly, you only become a villain to them too.

So what do you do?

You let it be.
You pray.
You hope they wake up from this spell cast by the tragedy of revisiting the past.
And you wait until they’re ready, until they no longer want to live in a false reality and rejoin the present.

You learn from them. You stop yourself from making the same mistake—the one they are currently living the repercussions of.

You do not allow yourself to wallow in the past, to dwell on something that happened yesterday, last year, or five minutes ago. The past is the past; you cannot change it.

You allow yourself only the privilege of reflecting for the sake of constructive feedback, on how you can learn from your experiences, and then you move on.

Leave the past where it belongs, or else it will destroy you.

And guess what? Maybe we can use the way our brain works to our advantage, actively choosing to remember the positive. Imagine the power that would have over your happiness.