Be wary of insecure people who look backwards into foggy memories of their past and claim those were the good times. These are incomplete musings of the fortunate who form the majority of our society’s demographic. Heavily dosed with innumerable biases, such memories are selective and most times don’t feature the unpleasant, or as a safety mechanism they choose to ignore them entirely. People who claim that the old times were the good times have not seen diversity as much as we see it now. They choose to forget, that, as young kids, they were just not as engaged in the hard realities of the economics, politics and societal ills of their times. They associate that ignorance to ‘good’ times.
Be wary of spineless people who look backwards and drag their ‘good old days’ onto today and darken things around them by the bigoted nostalgia that they release around them to mitigate the hard work that is required to see the world in an inclusive way.
Be wary of cowardly people who look backwards and believe strongly that the best solution is not takings steps into the future but retreating and hiding in the past where the problems of today did not exist but where the brave people were fighting the battles of their times against those who looked back into the even more distant past.
It takes courage and good sense to be in the present, have the full realization of the muck we are in with eyes wide open and plan ahead so we can, to the best of our abilities, clear the muck for ourselves and for people around us, in ever widening circles of consideration and kindness. That is what good citizens do. That is what leaders inspire. That is what I want my kids to remember as they grow into productive citizens of this planet.
My 2 cents 