Forsake the Past

I was scrolling through Pintrest the other day (shockingly, yes, I'm a girl) and got hung up on something I saw on the quotes page. Now that I've got the tattoo bug (I'm hoping to kick it any day now), I was just looking at cool fonts for #3. What I came across was one of those supposedly inspirational sayings that read: "Never use someone's past against them." This stopped my scrolling; it's a good sentiment in theory, but not totally true.

Relationship experts and psychologists would advise against bringing up past insults, injuries, or mistakes when arguing with a partner, domestic or otherwise. This is solid advice; arguing about doing the dishes shouldn't turn into a fight over past indiscretions. When that happens it only signals more pain for everyone involved; it's a tactic of emotional warfare and if you ever find yourself giving or receiving this kind of abuse you need to reevaluate the situation and your relationship.

So why did this phrase give me pause? A couple of reasons; first, I'm the type of person who will remember things long past when I should, but usually only things that are embarrassing or painful for me or others involved. Now, I'm not the type of person who will use these things against someone in an argument (the scenarios mentioned above), but it would be stupid of me to not allow the past actions of a person to color the way I interact with them now. Doing so would only set myself up for more pain, disappointment, etc. That said, I can still allow people to show me that the person I'm remembering is different than the one I'm currently interacting with.

Okay, so I guess that's not using someone's past against them. Why with the hold up? Why couldn't I just accept that as one of those great (if vapid) little inspirational pins and move on? One important thing: it should read "Never use someone's past against them. . . unless they use it against his/herself." This isn't an invitation to take the things someone shares about their past and use them against them; what I mean is that many people will carry their past (the negatives specifically) with them and use it as an excuse, as a crutch, as justification for continued poor action. If this is the case these people should not be given quarter because they are the primary people using their past against them. This may sound cruel, but until someone else shows you that your past may have led you to where you are but it is not WHO you are, nothing will change.

When two people meet they only know the person from time t to t+x where x is the length of the friendship. t-y means nothing to them. Sure in a relationship some things must be divulged; psychotic ex? Should probably tell that. Bullied a kid in high school? Unless that's the person you are now what bearing does that have on your current relationship. The only real reason to divulge things like that are for pity (my parents fought a lot when I was younger) or continued judgement (I almost got a kid expelled because I lied about him being abusive toward me). Both of those are examples I've used in the past and neither of those are relevant to my life now.

So this is a long rant about one tiny Pintrest post. Let me sum up: suck it up, your past is your past and if you don't think people should use it against you then stop using it against yourself. It's a huge burden and it's hard to make it to the steeper side lugging that with you.