Ever meet someone who had a bad experience with something?
Scratch that.
Think about how many people you know who had a bad experience with something. It may have been last week. More than likely, it was several years ago. Perhaps even decades ago.
And now, they never want to do that thing ever again.
We see this in piano teaching a lot.
A parent had some bad experiences performing in public as a child. So now, she wants to protect her kids from performing in public, so recitals are not an option.
But then, as noble as the intentions may have been, this causes the kids to quit piano. Because when a student's music never leaves the house, it's less meaningful.
And when music is less meaningful, students stop lessons when things get busy.
We're all wired like this. Some clinical psychologists call it "moralism."
Taking our experiences, abstracting a "moral" from that experience, and then using it for survival.
When a bad thing happens, we avoid the activity that caused it in the future.
When a good thing happens, we try to create that good thing again and again.
But there's a reason this ends up being our undoing. Often, our past experience and the reality of the present are two different things.
For example, a parent never enrolling his kids in piano lessons because he had a lousy experience himself as a kid. Despite the reality and truth that every piano teacher and every piano student is different.
Just because one teacher didn't deliver doesn't mean every teacher is destined to fail. But the mind tells us differently based on our experience.
Or, eating foods that we know are going to kill us. All because they're associated with hundreds, or maybe thousands, of pleasant memories.
In a technologically-advanced world with noise everywhere, this is why we need to spend time focusing on the present.
Every. Single. Day.
Questioning things. Testing things. Daring to be wrong. Or, maybe proving ourselves right.
When we live in the present, remembering the past, but acknowledging reality and how the mind can color things - that's when the creativity and happiness we were all born with can flourish..