Nostalgia: It’s a Hell of a Drug
I spent a good part of the summer months in Vancouver this year. Met up with old friends, spent time with my parents, ate amazingly good Asian food here & even went to old haunts. It was wonderful reminiscing about the good old days. I stayed in the room I grew up in and even went to dig out my old collection of anime and comic books I read. Yes, I am an unabashed otaku and geek. I even went to see the “Top Gun Maverick” movie which is about as nostalgic as you can get. Loved it by the way, especially as a fan of the first movie having watched Top Gun countless times.
You kind of revert back to a semblance of my childhood as my folks end up cooking, cleaning, heck they even gave me cash to go out and pay for stuff despite my protests. So you really end up relatively worry-free and carefree as your normal life seems so very far away.
But reality is always there and I know this is just a very pleasant break. Nostalgia is a wonderful feeling, defined as a sentimental longing or wistful affection of the past. You look back at who you were. You remember all the fun times and how innocent and naive you were. It also helps you see how far you have come, how much your life has changed. It helps you understand the progress you have made as a functioning and what you hope is a high achieving individual.
I love coming back because it reminds me of why I left. I left because I felt the place was too small & quiet, despite a wonderful quality of life. I left to compete in the much bigger USA and in my chosen industry of technology. I also think about all the things that I enjoy now. Traveling the world doing startup investments, doing LP fund investments, fundraising, building businesses, speaking at conferences and meeting and helping startup people.
Nostalgia is great but it represents the past. Enjoy it while it lasts. But your main focus should be on making your present and future life even better than before. Your present should be literally 1,000,000 times more awesome than in the past. That means you need to be actively taking action and steps to make every year of your life better than your last one.