Yesterday was Memorial Day. I love that day, but it’s one of our most misunderstood holidays. It’s gets twisted in with Veteran’s Day, and the point of the day often gets missed by many. I mean, there’s no fireworks at night to capture our thoughts, and, well, it deals with a focus on death. We in the USA in the year 2015 don’t like to focus on death. And yet, the idea of taking time for memory is critical.
You know I teach history. Memory is perhaps the entire point of the subject of History. We must remember. We as a people must remember and we as individuals must remember. Not only does the forgetting usually doom one to repeat past mistakes, the act of forgetting blinds us to who we really are, how we really got here.
We are now on the cusp of the great crisis. The Philosophical divide is clearly present and, if the pattern holds true, we simply are awaiting for the last explosive event that leads to action, leads to “crossing the Rubicon.” I’ll say more about this in another post, but for now, to help you Live Well….you must remember.
Each of us, and society in general, has arrived at this point due to previous choices. We can’t change those, but we can remember them as a practice to ensure we understand what has happened.
Note, this is true for you personally. This is why journaling is such a useful and powerful habit to build. Think about your life at this very second. How did you get to this point? What choices did you make? Maybe you think about a philosophical position….are you sure it’s the best? How did you arrive at that conclusion?
The failure to remember is one reason why so many marriages fail. While everyone is joyful on the marriage day….move forward some years and they’ve forgotten. All the know is the anger or frustration at each other due to whatever has happened. They’ve allowed themselves to forget why they got married in the first place. A journal helps you because you can read your own words and thoughts for that time. You recall why it mattered, why you said yes to this other person, what you were thinking about your future mate.
Today, even as the holiday of Memorial Day slides away, choose now to remember. Yes, remember the men and women who died for our country. Remember that God sent His son so that you would find true life. Remember those that love you. But perhaps even more so, choose today to remember the path that you’ve trod. Know clearly and purposefully how you ended up where you are right now. Don’t forget the choices previously made, the values upon which the families of your parents, grandparents and great-grandparents built their homes, and the overarching reality that you didn’t arrive at today by chance.