Wesley Guo Week 16: Reaching For Tomorrow.
It is extremely easy to spend too much time caught up in the tragedy of the past. Indeed, it is almost impossible to name any time period where no tragedy occurred somewhere. But wallowing in sadness and trauma does nothing to make for a better future.
After all, the past is already set in stone, but the future opens up to endless possibilities.
There are some memories too difficult to forget, too painful to forget. But we can move on. And life goes on no matter what.
In the 1970s, the People’s Republic of China emerged from over a century of disasters - the Opium Wars, Taiping Rebellion, Sino-Japanese War, 8 Nation Coalition, the Great War, the Warlord Era, World War 2, the Chinese Civil War, the Great Famine, and the Cultural Revolution. Any one of these events is a disaster that can affect a nation for many years, the combination of all these could easily destroy most. It would have been easy to blame one of these many disasters and spend forever wallowing in past misery.
Yet doing so helps no one, and certainly not the millions still starving. So they moved on, striving for a better future, bringing a billion people out of poverty into the Modern Era.
Painful memories aren’t – and possibility cant be – forgotten. But people can move on. And those that are suffering from trauma would likely say to themselves that they don’t wish to be remembered for a tragedy that they went through, but rather for the great things they accomplished later on in spite of that.
Thank you everyone for reading my blog posts throughout this school year! I had a lot of fun with this activity and I really enjoyed reading many of your blogs! Have a great last two weeks of school and good luck in the future everyone!
Fawcett, Greg. “Looking Forward.” DadSpeak, 15 Jan. 2020, www.dadspeak.net/2020/01/15/looking-forward/.
Hey Wesley! I really enjoyed having our blogs be similar in topic but contrasting in the lessons we take away. I enjoyed reading your perspective and I definitely agree that some things can be very traumatizing. However, I think it is still important to look back and acknowledge that these things are bad so we can move on from them. Personally, I keep feeling guilty or like I am stuck until I fully process something that happened in my past. For instance, if I make a mistake and refuse to acknowledge that I got a bad grade, I feel scared every time I pick up the pen to work again. But, if I take the time and understand what exactly I did wrong, I feel more confident about moving forward with my studies. With that being said, I do agree that being stuck in the past is not good either. It is crucial to have the balance between recognizing that something unfortunate happened and moving forward even though it happened. If we stay in the past too long, we miss the present and blunder our future. Overall, I definitely agree with your main idea that we have to stay in the present in order to move to our future. I enjoyed reading your blog this final week and I hope I get to read more of your work in the future!
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ReplyDeleteHi Wesley! I completely resonate with your message that our past is already set in stone and should be learned from. If we stay in the past for too long, we will never appreciate the present nor learn to make our future better when we learn from any past mistakes in our lives. Painful memories are always in the back of our minds, but if we learn to forgive ourselves and others who have hurt us, we can move forward and can achieve greater accomplishments in life. Similar to how the Republic of China progressed after recovering from numerous environmental and economic disasters, we as high schoolers need to also progress in our lives as well when we reflect on our own "disasters" such as bad grades on tests or bad behavior as well. Students should identify their mistakes but most importantly, learn from them so they do not repeat them again. By following this continuous process of learning from the past and not beating yourself up for these mistakes, students and people in general can learn to better themselves and their future ahead.
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