Missing something from the past?
I looked at the happy faces in the convention photo of my ex-colleagues.
Immediately, I feel a pang of nostalgia.
Oh, I miss the bunch.
I missed the intellectual banter with the sales and marketing team.
I missed the camaraderie feeling of going out to trade with my team.
I missed the adrenaline rush from securing a deal or doing last-minute firefighting to solve a supply issue.
I missed working with a team in the office and having someone to have a mid-day coffee chit-chat with before we dive back into our work.
As I find myself missing these things that I left behind 1.5 years ago, I wonder,
did I make the right decision to leave a place that I still occasionally miss now?
Does missing something mean I still want it now?
The other day, I met and spoke to some of my ex-colleagues.
It felt great and at the same time, I was being reminded of a reality I had mostly forgotten.
The parts that I don’t envy – the multiple meetings and trackers, the immense pressure to hit sales targets and drive profitability, and the frustration of having to pull long hours to respond to last-minute management requests.
Oh, I also had to decline coaching and training requests because I was too swamped with work.
I realize that my mind had chosen to store mainly the good memories and feelings of the past, and forgotten what didn’t serve me back then.
That’s the thing about missing something from the past.
Our memory is often not objective and accurate.
The mind tends to glorify the past, resulting in doubts and regret in the present.
I asked myself, do I miss it? Yes, I do.
Do I still want the same things now? Not for now.
When I miss something, I often wonder if I have let go of what I love.
Whether I made the wrong decision.
The thing is, missing something doesn’t mean that it’s still something that’s still suitable for you, or it’s something that you still want.
If you’re missing your old job, it doesn’t mean that what you have now isn’t right.
If you’re missing an ex-boyfriend, it doesn’t mean that you still want him back.
If you’re missing the fast-paced busy life, it doesn’t mean it still suits you now.
It’s okay to miss something, or someone, and not want to have it in the present moment.
Don’t mistake missing something for “love” or “fate”.
We humans are wired for comfort and when things are uncertain, we tend to miss familiarity.
Even though the familiar feeling is not what you want in the long run. Heck, it can even be painful.
To avoid the fear of uncertainty about the future, many choose to hang on to the pain of the present.
"At least, I can cope with the pain. I don’t know how to cope with something that I am unsure about."
So, I have come to accept that it’s normal to miss the past.
It can be a way to be grateful for what went well.
At the same time, you don’t have to let it affect your choices moving forward.
Your choices moving forward are to be guided by your values, not by regret.
My invitation is for all of us to live forward, feel free to reminisce about the past but not with regret.
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