It is hard to predict what will happen in the future. In fact, it is so hard that I am going to try to persuade you not to do it. And, because I love running analogies, almost as much as I love telling breakup stories, I will be sure to use a lot of breakup stories to justify my points. Er, I mean, running analogies.
I once asked my history teacher why we have to study this historical stuff – all this stuff already happened, and we should be focusing on the future and not the past. The response I got was that in order to better prepare for the future, we must know what we did in the past – what mistakes were made, what worked, and what did not work – so that we know what to do or not do in the future. That seemed to make a lot of sense, and there are many people who do this: looking to the past to determine the present and the future. So, in the running community, we have seen that to determine how fast one can run a mile, one can do the workout of 10x400m with 1 minute rest. The time that one can consistently do those quarters will be about the time of each lap of the mile on race day. But we also know that that does not always work. There are many factors the contribute each day’s running, and something might happen on the day that one did the workout or the day of the race. Maybe something happened leading up to race day that affected one’s race.
Past experiences determine people’s actions, beliefs, and perceptions. Many people think that because something happened in the past, it will happen again in the future. Or, people judge others based on what they have seen of that person.
The problem is that with that type of thinking, people limit themselves to what they can experience. Things change. One’s perception of what happened might have been a biased perception. There may have been misunderstanding, confusion, and/or delusions.
While that is not to say that someone deserves a second, third, fourth, and fifth chance, more things should be taken with an open mind, or “blank slate,” such that, if there is something that one feels should be done, and the only thing stopping one from doing it is some bad experiences in the past, one should take the opportunity and give it a chance. Maybe things have changed. Maybe one can change something.
Last night, my stomach was feeling crappy, and I had not slept well. I did not want to go out for a run because I did not feel well and figured it would be a bad run anyway. At one point into the night, I decided to stop thinking about it and just go run. It ended being a really nice run, and I was able to think about a lot of things in the comfort that is not my room. So, what I had expected to be a really bad run turned out to be a really nice 45 minutes or so.
In Philosophy, we learned that knowledge is “justified, true beliefs.” I like to think that I do not really have knowledge of much, but just stories in which I believe. So, if I have ever said something along the lines of, “I know for a fact . . . ,” I really mean, “a story that I really believe is . . . .” Stories may or may not be true, and may or may not be accurate when they are retold. The past should be taken into consideration, but not too seriously.
Next time, we look at those who only live in the present and have no worries about the future.
