Dwelling on the past is a path to misery, even though our brains are wired to replay mistakes and missed opportunities. Your identity isn't shaped by what happened to you, but by how you perceive it. People with painful childhoods can thrive while those with privilege struggle, proving the past doesn't determine your future.
Chapters
The third thing that you want to do if you want to be miserable is to really fixate on the past. Really just only think about the past. Because we as humans, we have a tendency to ruminate. We replay all of our past mistakes, all of our missed opportunities, all of our lost relationships, everything that we don't have that we used to have before, how it was the good old days in the past or we had trauma in the past. And it's really, it makes sense evolutionarily as well where it's a, it's a deep seated fear of repeating mistakes. You are not who you are because of the past. You are who you think you are because of what your perception of the past was. I know many people who have had terrible childhoods and they have incredible lives right now. I know people who had great childhoods and they have terrible lives right now. So it doesn't mean that the past is going to dictate your present or your future.