Quote of the Week...from Mick Jagger

The past is a great place and I don't want to erase it or to regret it, but I don't want to be its prisoner either.                                                                       ---Mick Jagger

Mick Jagger, of course, is the world-famous lead singer and lyricist for the British rock band Rolling Stones.  Anyone who has been through all that he has over the years and still remains in pretty good shape at age 75 has learned some important life lessons...the trick is to discern which ones have a more universal application and which ones worked only for the one individual.  The above quote is obviously of the former type, although the way Jagger worded it his past of glory, fame, and excess may not exactly be the kind of past many people seemed obsessed with...

I think it was around 1975 and my father mentioned to me that he thought this whole "bad guy" image that the Rolling Stones were putting out was nonsense...after all, Mick Jagger was a health freak, working out and watching his diet.  So the dude was taking care of himself even back then and not letting the turbulent and exciting early years of his band define his own reality for him.  Being rooted in the present doesn't mean, though, that we shouldn't draw upon our past experiences in helping us in our lives...we just don't "live" back there.  Have you ever written a list of grievances about your own life, and upon looking at it realize that many if not most of the items were regrets or bad experiences from the past that don't really affect how you live in the present? If so, then you just might be living a little too much in your own past.  I realize that in today's world of pop psychology and self-help a lot of advice is given about examining one's own past to determine the causes of whatever problems they are experiencing in the present.  For example, we tend to unconsciously model much of our behavior after what we observe in others...especially our parents.  I admit that recognizing this might be helpful, but why not instead just cut to the chase and determine what works now and what doesn't and just work to change it without getting muddled in memories?  I think a lot of us have become so brainwashed into thinking that every time we suffer a problem we have to then go back in time to determine their root causes and dwell on it all...wouldn't it be better to work on solving the problem as it exists in real time right now?  I think Jagger might agree with me on that one, although as his longsuffering collaborator Keith Richards no doubt would agree, he would also probably find something about this article to get snitty about...