Anticipating vs. Reminiscing Through Life

Living in the moment

I recently took a poll on Twitter to find out if my followers tend to live in the past, anticipate the future, or live in the moment. The results were small but surprisingly even between the anticipators and the reminiscers. Regardless, we utilize both to help get us through the present.

Anticipating an upcoming event or reminiscing about the past is inevitable if you are a living, breathing human. We use them interchangeably everyday in order to distract, entertain, cope, plan, and learn. Memories and planning are what keep us going. So do you anticipate or reminisce through life?

Memory and mood

Getting a flat tire can feel like a car wreck if you’re in the wrong mindset and have had a rough day. Likewise, finding a dollar in your pocket can feel like hitting the lottery, especially if you really needed a dollar.  But how we react to each situation varies from day to day. It may take an actual car wreck to ruin a good day. Meanwhile, winning the lottery won’t change your mood if you’re in a state of pain or grief.

These highs and lows get filed away as memories. Then, we use those memories to daydream, reminisce, beat ourselves up, or remember to repeat what worked and remind ourselves not make the same mistakes in the future. Our daydreams also take the form of both things we want to do or things we’re afraid of happening.

There are people who only remember the good stuff. Then, there are those who only remember the bad. Being one or the other isn’t necessarily a good thing. Those who only remember the good don’t learn from the bad, which can lead to future mistakes. Those who only remember the bad are worry warts who can’t get excited for the future. They see only potential disasters.

In reality, few life events can be categorized as all good or all bad. But like the car wreck and lottery scenarios, our mood and mindset can dictate this perspective.

Anticipatory thinking

Had I voted in my poll, I would have voted reminiscing. Anticipating usually comes with the stress of planning and worrying about anything that can go wrong. You also overthink in order to catch every bad thing before it happens.

For me, once the initial excitement of going somewhere, meeting up with someone, or planning an event wears off, that’s when the worrying begins. It ties into my need to be in control and to head off any potential issues before they occur. It also, ironically, ties into memory and reminiscing about times when things didn’t go according to plan.

I like to learn from my mistakes and even the mistakes of others. I also don’t have to experience a catastrophe personally in order to learn from it. As a result, I’ve developed a coping mechanism which is to not get excited for things.

If you aren’t riding a high, you can’t fall very far. With no expectations, there is no bar for that experience to meet. If plans are cancelled or turn into a disaster, I’m not devastated afterwards. But if they go great or even just okay, that’s better than expecting something great and ending up a travesty. But is this healthy?

The 5 mindsets of anticipatory thinking

An article by Psychology Today states 5 mindsets related to anticipatory thinking:

“…from a procedural mindset to a problem solving mindset — the dysfunction is to remain locked in to a mindset that a job consists of following procedures, rather than being alert to anomalies.

From a reactive mindset to an anticipatory mindset. Novices, in particular, seem to be content to reacting to events rather than trying to get ahead of the curve but even people with years of experience sometimes retain this passive reactive mindset.

From a mindless stance to an active and curious stance — in my research on insight I found that the people who gained insights were actively curious and speculating whereas those who had the same information but missed the insight were passive and stopped speculating.

Need for Closure — a mindset that tries to tie everything down as quickly as possible is likely to be insensitive to unexpected events that should trigger AT and opens up new possibilities and vulnerabilities.

In addition, designers need to shift from a mindset of how devices work to a mindset of how devices might fail — it is too easy to fall into the rut of imagining how a device, or a plan, can succeed rather than engaging in AT to imagine the things that might go wrong.”

Reminiscing about the past

When my sister and I planned our trip to New York City in June, we booked our room and bus months in advance. Despite my issues with anticipating events, it calms my nerves to make plans ASAP. In fact, the article Why Pre-Paying Increases Enjoyment actually makes a case for the benefits of advanced planning.

It also relates to how experiences are more fulfilling than stuff, something we all know but still tend to take small hits of a dopamine rush of impulse buys. That’s probably because they’re easier to access than life experiences. But life experiences are ultimately longer lasting and more fulfilling.

Of course, I still worried about what could happen in the months between booking the trip and actually going on the trip. Life happens. Someone could get sick, hurt, or laid off. Any number of plan-cancelling situations could occur.

That sounds pessimistic, but I like to think of it as realistic. I didn’t expect those things to happen, but I didn’t want to lose sight of the fact that they could. Because they have.

But I’m not so worried about those things happening that I’m going to avoid making plans at the risk that something bad will happen. Cause bad things can happen if you stay home as well. That’s getting into fate versus free will territory that is an entirely separate issue. But I think they too are connected to a person’s mindset.

Those rare moments of excitement

I have to admit, there were days when I was stuck at work in the months leading up to my trip where just thinking about the trip helped to get me through an hour of the monotony of my work week. I didn’t so much focus on what it would be like or how I would make it perfect as I did thinking about what I did know about this city I’d never been to and what it would be like to see it for myself.

I’d look at photos, watch videos, and pull up live cams to try to get a sense of what to expect. Then, when I’d get too far into  detailed expectation territory, I’d reel myself in and go back to generalizing the trip as a whole.

The trip itself was nothing like I’d been imaging in my head in those anticipatory months. But even with its imperfections, it was better than what I’d imagined. Because once I experienced it, I could come home to actual memories, not an imaginary version of the experience or the worry of what bad things could happen either before or during the trip.

It also helped that the trip went overwhelmingly smoothly. Not perfect but any imperfections gave it character and uniqueness. Now, when I see photos or videos of the city, I have a sensory perspective of the places I’ve seen, smelled, touched and heard.

Now, I can reminisce about that trip when I’m bored or sad, and I can choose to omit any of the negative stuff or laugh it off. I don’t have the added baggage of worry and planning that comes with an event that hasn’t yet taken place. It’s there to utilize and evolve over time. For more on this, check out:  New Evidence Shows the Calming Power of Reminiscing About Happy Times

The gift and curse of having a good memory

I believe that my issues with anticipating have to do with having a good memory. That’s not to say that I have a photographic or an eidetic memory. I used to have to learn my flashcards in school like everyone else, and I can’t remember intricate details like what someone was wearing yesterday.

But my long-term memory is pretty strong and associative. It amuses people when I can recall a fact or a particular day from as far back as age two, relating information that they don’t remember or had forgotten until I brought it up again.

My research on the subject points to a combination of being female, having OCD, and being an observer more than a communicator. I don’t know for sure. But most of my recall has to do with emotion rather than visuals. As a result, it can make my collection of memories both a gift and a curse because I remember the bad with the good, and bad can overtake the good. A really interesting article I recommend if you want to read more about memory is 10 Unforgettable Statistics About Human Memory.

We’ve all seen the memes of the cartoon character about to fall asleep when their brain wakes them up to remind them about an embarrassing moment in high school or the dread of facing their own mortality one day. That overactive brain mixed with a massive catalog of knowledge, fears, shame, and guilt can weigh on you and make for a scary future.

The balance of anticipating and reminiscing

Anticipating and Reminiscing are two actions that we take part in everyday, even subconsciously. It’s never going to stop as long as our complex brains continue to function. So, the best thing is to reconcile the two. Both have their ups and downs. That, mixed in with a strong memory, can wear you down or keep you going from minute to minute. It’s all part of being human, working with and against yourself, trying to survive, and most of all, making the most of the time you have as a living, thinking being.

Do you prefer to anticipate an event or reminisce about it afterward? Leave your answers in the comments below!

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