Be happy with your bad memory, here is why

Published in El Pais, 2 March 2019.

Some of us can be proud with a good memory. They remember every word of a conversation, every face of people ever met and every word or at the critical part of a book. In general, it is considered that these people can enjoy life more because they never miss a thing. They never arrive back from the supermarket noticing that they forgot the most important stuff, neither do they lose time trying to remember on how to do something.

Nonetheless, persons with a good memory remember everything the good and bad stuff. In any random occurring thought they have is also flooded with things they do not want to remember. Normally our brain cuts out the bad stuff that makes us feel depressed. In a Canadian study they asked students to remember their grades from high school. The results showed that people had no problem remembering the high grades, but had significant problems remembering the lower ones.

In general, this mechanism is to protect us from feeling miserable with accumulated number of bad experiences. It is however not always that useful, we learn best from our mistakes, so if we stow it a way before having reflected on what we did wrong, we do not improve as persons. The last one is the reason why some managers keep weird souvenirs on their desk without telling anybody about it. It reminds them on bad decisions they took and want to prevent them from falling into a certain trap again.

That said, there are people who can remember up to a scary level of detail what they have been doing in the past 10-20 years. The good and the bad. Just the idea that I could remember every one of my worst experiences in my life makes me go pale.

So, who wants to remember every day the huge disappointments of their life? I guess nobody. To live a nice and happy life, we need to look at it in a positive way. This is difficult if we attach a bad memory to everything we do as we fill everything with fear. So, if you can’t even remember so many details in the things you do; don’t feel frustrated because it helps you eventually to be happier!