Euphoric Recall Exposed

My high school graduating class was special; we were close. We knew it then, and we know it now. We can — and often do — tell story after story, laughing harder now than we did at the time, for as we recollect our younger antics from a now older perspective, we shake our heads with a grin — “What were we thinking?!?” We will gather next summer for our 50^th class reunion. Hard to believe.

Those of us who are prone to reminisce about “the good old days” when life was “carefree” do well to remember them more completely. For we are naturally prone to “euphoric recall,” the tendency to remember past experiences more positively than they actually were and not to remember the negative things associated with those events — the troubles, insecurities, danger, and confusion, for instance. Such romanticism is tantalizing and misleading, painting a revisionist reflection of the past, and dulling our present by contrast. Solomon warns against it: “Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.”¹ For memory bias inflates our past as something more than it was, distorts our present as something less than it is, and sets an unreasonable standard for what tomorrow must be. Yes, it is hard to compete with euphoric recall.

But when we look back more honestly, remembering the bad with the good, we can appreciate something far greater than the false foundation of selective memory: the undeterred faithfulness of our proactive God. Paul’s truthful perspective on the past resonates still today: “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy . . .”² This was our reality — far from euphoric — until God stepped in. Paul continues, “But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”³

God’s plan for us far exceeds any other narrative we can construct through selective memory. We look back, yes, but not to return to an imaginary past, rather to gain strength for our sure and certain way forward.

“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”⁴

Remember your mercy, O Lord, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O Lord!⁵ Amen.

¹ Ecclesiastes 7:10 ESV
² Titus 3:3 ESV
³ Titus 3:4-7 ESV
⁴ Hebrews 13:8 ESV
⁵ Psalm 25:6-7 ESV