Future Proof
  • Introduction
  • My Future
  • Your Future
  • Future Anxiety
  • Control
  • Neuroscience
  • 5 Stages of Engagement
  • Future Proofing
  • You Are Not Alone
  • 5 Stages of Engagement
    • Engagement
    • 1. Unaware
    • 2. Denial
    • 3. Resistance or Bargaining
    • 4. Flakiness
    • 5. Acceptance
  • Actions for Future Proofing
    • Future proofing leads to better public discourse
    • Mindsets for tackling the future
    • Becoming Future Proof
    • Learn to be Creative
    • Diversification
    • Taking Action
    • The Past is Done
    • Cognitive Bias
    • Future Self
    • Simplification
  • Small Cogs and Rapid Change
  • The Role of the Individual
  • Social Tipping Point Research
  • Societal Change
  • Maths
  • Making Tipping Points Happen
  • Annex
    • List of Biases About the Future
Powered by GitBook
On this page

Was this helpful?

  1. Actions for Future Proofing

The Past is Done

PreviousTaking ActionNextCognitive Bias

Last updated 5 years ago

Was this helpful?

We all have regrets and most won't hold us back. In letting go we acknowledge a lesson learnt and maybe feel a bit guilty or annoyed that we didn't see the problem at the time - hind-sight is an annoying teacher. Give your past self some credit - they weren't as wise as you are now!

If you’re regretting past errors or fear repeating them, try to move on. The past is most definitely not a guide to the future but your successes might be!

Not all your IDEAs will succeed. Move on and create some more. Which sounds like classic advice for entrepreneurs…

“How to Stop Holding on to Things And Truly Live” by Vishal Kataria (paywall, sorry)

Winnie-the-Pooh has an interesting if poignant perspective on this - at the end of A. A. Milne's original version Pooh and Christopher Robin walk off to 'the enchanted place, and there we leave them'. Which is a statement about the end of childhood, leaving it behind but not forgetting it. It is now done, but still exists - we've learnt from it but are moving on, can't revisit (arguably shouldn't try).

A poem "In Passing" by the late Lisel Mueller (thanks to Maria Popova ) captures the bittersweet process of change wonderfully, from the forward to :

How swiftly the strained honey of afternoon light flows into darkness

and the closed bud shrugs off its special mystery in order to break into blossom:

as if what exists, exists so that it can be lost and become precious.

https://link.medium.com/BLAb4FLBeW
for the reference
her book