Teen Breathe Magazine – Issue 27

There are plenty of times when you might look ahead to help guide your actions in the present. Choosing to continue with Geography at school because you aspire for a career that helps the environment. Doing homework on the day you get it to ensure your weekend is free for celebrating a friend’s birthday. Or putting down an exciting novel when you’re tired, so that future you will have more energy to linger over its ending.

But how often do you consider the role that the past plays on the here and now? While this aspect of time is perhaps not acknowledged as often as the future, it’s just as influential on your current day – if not more.

General history has shaped the world you live in today. Exploring stories and events from bygone eras can give you a deeper understanding of some of the issues and topics you might be familiar with in the present.

And on a personal level, asking relatives about your family’s past can be a greatly inspiring activity for everyone involved as well as bringing you all closer together in the process.

For this reason it’s important not to disregard the practice of looking back and learning lessons from the past. It’s time to reframe this activity from being irrelevant, to one that holds the key to who you are and where you’re going.