BellaOnline Forums Beauty and Self Life Coaching Is history relevant?

Alexandra mentioned in one of her posts that past was no longer relevant. She was talking about her past.

What about history?
Is it relevant?

Only insofar as it should serve as a teacher. But it rarely does.
Even the Bible - an ancient mixture of scriptures if ever there was one - states that a fool returns to his folly, as a dog returns to his own vomit
.
A wise man will learn from his mistakes.
A Fool will repeat them.

I never asked if history is relevant to fools?

Anyone who has never learnt from a persistently made mistake, but has either gone on to repeat it, or just make more mistakes - is a fool.

Alexandra, you need to read the original post again.
you are unnecessarily going wayward.

I will rephrase it-
What about history?
Is it relevant?
Is it relevant to Intelligent people?

I don't think Alexandra's answers are irrelevant at all.

History is just used more in the "big picture" learning than in every day life (I believe). Groups and leaders tend to take away more from history - but since most of us tend to led st some point in life (even if as only parents), we still have much to gain from history.

History is learning from someone else's mistakes, and hopefully being able to avoid them oursleves, as opposed to learning friom our own mistakes and repeating them.

I believe history is relevant because it is helpful in understanding our past. We can see what happened to get us to where we are now, personally and as a society. It can help us see what we want to change in order to get a better outcome.

My high school history teacher had a quote up on the board (no author was given). It said: Those who fail to remember history are condemned to repeat it!

Having said that, I have to add this: I don't believe in letting history determine what my future will be. I only hang out in the past long enough to understand the cause and effect. I also don�t beat myself up over it. I choose to look backward through eyes of wisdom and not judgment or negativity towards myself or others.

For example, if I'm unhappy about something in my present, I look in my past to see when I first made an agreement or belief system about that specific thing. Then I break my old agreement and make a new agreement for my present and future. I don�t need to feel the pain all over again.

Here's a personal example: I've always loved to write, but somehow felt I wasn't fully able to express what was inside of me. No amount of "current thinking" helped me break through that barrier. The freedom came from remembering my past. Someone once broke my privacy and read through all my personal stuff (very revealing journals included). They even shared it with others. I was devastated and made a vow never to write anything down again that would leave me so vulnerable. I had forgotten all about it until I decided to ask why and remember my past.

I realized that historic vow in pain was what was holding me back in my present. I made a new vow to write from my heart, knowing I would be OK because I'm OK with me regardless of what anyone else thinks. The writer's block was completely removed!

Tell me, how would I have broken through that without remembering my past? It was a VOW I had made and I take my vows seriously.

My past is relevant, but it does not control my future. My past is not who I am today. However, if I completely ignore my past, I feel like I somehow lack understanding at times.

Still, I was at a women's retreat one time when the speaker asked, "How would you feel about your future today if you couldn't remember your past?" It felt pretty good to think that way and I thought "Wow" at first. Now I realize, I would lose the marker that shows me just how far I've come in my personal growth. Besides, we have brains that store this kind of information. I may as well use it to grow.

So yes, the past is relevant in learning, but it is not relevant in holding back our future unless we let it do so.

Have you experienced anything similar?

Hey, all of you.

I was talking about History in the broader sense.
Not personal history.

I thought I understood your original question, but are we not all parts that make up the whole?

Part of what I said also applies to society in a broad sense because if we do not look at worked and did not work before, we may make the same mistakes over again. I don't ever want to see another Hitler!

Do I feel like I need to know all the details of history and specific dates? Well, NO! I don't actually care for history. My husband is a Socials teacher and I quite frankly don't know how he can actually ENJOY the details!

What's YOUR opinion? You asked the question, but I'm also interested in your answer.

I think that history tells us about-
the psychology of the people.
Our desires.
The destruction we can do.
How we take decisions.
How something that was important yesterday is not so today. That adds to our perspective.
How the civilization grew
and so on.

I believe that to get a broader perspective of life, one must read history.