Looking back with rose-tinted glasses

Kanisa George

WHAT I love most about the human experience is the ability to reinvent oneself as often as possible.

I count myself lucky to live in a space and time that allows me to morph into a new me at will and shed the narrative of the old.

That’s the thing about life: whether we like it or not, we’re in a constant state of movement.

Embracing the present while anxiously or graciously awaiting the future can sometimes feel like a game of high stakes. It requires us to put our best foot forward while remaining hopeful that the stars will align by some miracle.

The truth is, when we’re not worrying about the future or dreading the present, we’re sitting in a state of rumination, pondering over the things we’ve left behind.

It’s no joke that our past plays a major role in any progress we seek later in life. Even if we try to distance ourselves from those unpalatable experiences, they’ll always be part of our story.

But it’s as if we’ve somehow unsuspectedly learned a trick where, almost at the flick of a switch, we look back at our past with a skewed and sometimes inaccurate perception.

We all have a knack for making things into something they are not. When we think about our past experiences, especially when experiencing difficult moments, we conjure memories that appear sharp, well-focused, and far more optimistic than they were.

How we perceive any experience is tainted by a plethora of factors that impact how memory is recorded and stored. Similarly, when we recall a memory, several variables collide, and we sometimes desperately seek an image that can only be seen through rose-tinted glasses.

Rosy retrospection, or the tendency to remember and recollect past events in a more favourable light than when they occur, is a memory bias that most of us readily succumb to. We inadvertently trick ourselves into believing an experience is better than it actually is. This position is what some scholars refer to as our desire to romanticise the past, a toxic dynamic state that can accelerate a sense of despair and disillusionment.

Psychologists have concluded that we often subconsciously embellish the past to deal with present uncertainties or painful experiences. Washington University professor Henry Roediger, a specialist in collective memory, says the human tendency to put a rosy tint on past events becomes especially prevalent when those past events eventually have a good ending.

When reminiscing about our past, we’re sometimes guilty of withdrawing individual memories that are often better than the actual event and using these to define our collective memory. In other words, we engage in a cherry-picking exercise and choose those memories that best suit us.

Looking back at past events is also an exercise in nostalgic relief. Nostalgia plays a significant role in why we romanticise past events and periods. When reflecting on our school days or first loves, feelings of wistfulness and sentimentality naturally blur our perception.

One study on rosy retrospection found that nostalgic reflection exaggerates the perception of positive past experiences, and the warm feelings we get when reminiscing cast everything in a rosier light.

We look back often not to reminisce but to make sense of what we’re currently experiencing. When we’re in a rut, or our present realities are stressful or unsatisfying, the garden of our past is presented in a dazzling display of colour and splendour. Our past appears rosier by contrast.

The past becomes idolised because we’re comparing it to the present. So, instead of working through the difficult moments we’re currently facing, we mull over a past experience that wasn’t all that we’re hyping it up to be.

But seeing things from an exaggerated positive stance isn’t always bad. One study presented that rose-coloured reminiscing acts as a buffer against feelings of regret, disappointment, or lower life satisfaction. If you take all the positives out of a bad experience, like a friendship that fizzled out or a difficult period, moving on in peace with your sense of identity and self-esteem intact becomes easier.

In some ways, rosy retrospection can improve mental health by decreasing depression and anxiety, and allowing one to look back in peace instead of regret or anger. While there’s always the risk of self-deception and delusional thinking, pulling the best out of a negative experience can save us a lot of heartache and undue stress and can, in some ways, make the future bearable.

But be careful. Creating a positive narrative to justify toxic, harmful situations is never the answer.

We must be careful to access the actual reality using a cause-and-effect equation, for no matter how you swing it, abuse, toxicity, and harmful behaviour should not be justified by the presence of a few redeeming moments.

Rosy retrospection, an enemy or saint? It’s hard to say, but what I can admit is that a little positive exaggeration might not be the worst thing in the world.