A Step Forward and a Look Back.

Africa Group.
Week 3: “Equilibriums: The importance of remembering about our past but looking to the future.”

A Step Forward and a Look Back.

Time is where we exist and can be. It’s the past, the present and the future but the question is: “Where do we stand from it?” If we ask ourselves “Is our life only limited to the present moment? Do we live as if there has been or won’t be any other time?” then I’m sure the answer wouldn’t be yes. Because we’re obliged to obey to the rules of time even biologically, we can’t live today and forget about everything that has happened yesterday and act as if nothing about it has affected us or changed anything about us or not think of tomorrow that we dedicate the most of our present for. As we stand in the middle of all this, not able to move forward without a plan neither without carrying the past all along with us, how can we get to achieve a certain equilibrium that will ensure our well being and let us do things right?

The past is a big part of us; it contributes in a major way in building ourselves. Day by day, we get to confront new situations of life and we sometimes don’t know what’s the right thing to do unless we have been already through it so we keep learning from such experiences. We meet people who teach us lessons we could never know in another way and having all this in the past can help us knowing how to act in the present and avoid committing mistakes. At the same time the past can be painful, we can go through things that we’re not able to get over and which keep haunting our present and getting in our way for a better future which some people can be too obsessed with that they forget to enjoy their present. Some people have to do everything just for what it will give them in the future ignoring that maybe in few minutes they wouldn’t even be a part of this life. They look up to the future as if they’re so certain that they’re going to be there tomorrow. They miss precious moments that they could live in the present just because such moments give nothing in the future and for them it’s a waste of time as if time couldn’t have a meaning any other way.

People can’t avoid this notion of time but they have to stop being obsessed with it. It’s like thinking what is the right way to do things and forgetting how to enjoy them instead. There is no equilibrium that can be set between the past and the future because in this situation we still don’t know where the present stands. I say “Life is too short, live it your way”, you can be stuck in the past or obsessed with the future but you can’t deny that you keep living in the present and that there will always be a way to live it differently so give yourself a chance to think once again about this and to take a step forward while you feel so good as you take a look back.

By Duroy, Tunisia
20 years old