Everyone needs to have some good memories. They can give a person a boast on a gloomy day or when you are caught in a depressing mood. And I think that a person must have some good memories in order to form a good self image.  Parts of  various good memories will be used to form your perception of who you are and how you fit into your world.

You don’t have to spend a long time in a reflective thought in order to benefit from a good memory.  Sometimes just the flash of it across your mind will be enough. But it helps if the good memories are vivid enough and strong enough to be easily available when needed.

I assume that good memories are generated by good experiences…

…Which would be experiences in which you received some positive benefit. And good memories probably come out of relationships, so they probably focus on some positive experience that you had with another person. Although I’m sure that it is possible to have a good memory of a time or place or situation when you were alone, and you had a particularly good experience being there by yourself.

Of course good memories are personal treasures. They are absolutely private. No one can invade them, steal them, manipulate them, or even know about them without your permission. Some drugs or psychological techniques can uncover them to others to some extent, but the memories will always be yours.

Photographs and diaries and journals and scrap books and things like those can help to preserve some good memories, but please note that the permanence of such things is never guaranteed. People have lost generations of family photos and personal records in fires and floods and divorces and other personal tragedies. But memories that are stored in one’s mind cannot be destroyed by such circumstances. Dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease or a stroke or an injury to one’s brain can affect a person’s memories, which often adds a heavy psychological burden to the otherwise physical discomforts of such diseases or injuries. But such personal afflictions are not regular traumas for most people.

So it is well to protect good memories, but what can a person do who may not have many in the first place?

A lot of good memories are created by a happy childhood, but not everyone may have had  that blessing.  And sometimes the youth years are full of new tribulations, and the glorious of young adult independence and graduations and weddings and the fulfillment of career ambitions may not be sustained by many good strong memories. What can a person do when the supply of good memories is very scarce?

As long as a person has the mental capacity to make choices, he or she can be selective in what features or experiences in one’s past one wants to dwell upon. If most of your experiences have been negative or not particularly beneficial, don’t go back there very often or stay there very long. Use your present moment for something that is positive. And a good memory may just be buried under a bunch of “garbage” or some “trash” that should have been discarded a long time ago.  Dig through the “garbage” or the “trash” to find that small “gem” of fleeting friendship or personal victory or a moment of laughter that can provide you with a good memory. For some such small “gems”, I invite you to check out some very brief statements that I have written regarding “good news”. You can read them here: good news.

What do you think is the best source of good memories? What are some of the good memories that bless you? How can a person protect them? What can a person do when he or she only has a very few in his or her “treasure” chest. Let’s talk about this.