You Can Learn to Remember: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life pdfdrive com

rekindling the flame
EXERCISE TWENTY FOUR
There is no official list of positive emotions, but a fairly loose list might include
happiness, love, empathy, wonder, laughter, trust, optimism. When life seems a
little flat, we can benefit by recapturing some of the emotions of the past in order
to resensitize our responses.
1. Let us say that you are feeling unsympathetic to a friend, for no apparent
reason. Recall as vividly as you can the last time you felt close intimacy with that
friend – perhaps it was a time when the person was having a tough time, or when
he or she was showing admirable qualities.
2. Visualize a gold trophy, the kind that sports players receive. This one has been
specially made to commemorate your friend’s special qualities, as shown on that
occasion.
3. Imagine yourself in the present, taking your friend by surprise by presenting

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the trophy to them. You feel proud of the acquaintance you have with them. All
your dissatisfactions fall away. In your mind make a little ceremonial speech of
thanks, explaining why the friend deserves the trophy.
keeping the mind young
P
eople age in different ways and at different rates. Those who aspire to slow
down aging might decide to eat various healthy foods, or to swim everyday at
the age of 65. But if we want to keep ourselves young, we must pay attention to
the mind as well as the body.
One important dimension to keeping the mind and memory stretched to
their full potential is interest – the degree to which we are engaged with all that
goes on around us, from the local scale up to the global. Interest, as much as
concentration, provides a firm grounding for effective memorization. When we
are children, so much is exciting because we have never seen it before. As we
get older we are in danger of becoming jaded – we tend to be less fascinated by
our surroundings. The secret of regaining our excitement is to look through the
veil of the familiar to what lies beyond, to be alert to the surprises all around us,
to see the intriguing connections that give a shape to our experiences and
encounters. We must never take the world for granted: look at the moon through
binoculars and identify the craters; learn the species of trees in your local park;
visit an exhibition of flower paintings to learn about the Dutch tulip trade of the
seventeenth century, when tulips were used as currency.
To be able to enjoy one’s past is to live twice.
MARTIAL
c.40–102
CE
Aging must not be thought of as the inevitable harbinger of memory loss
(see
p.58
). Once we reject expectations that our minds will begin to fail us as we
get older, we can look positively to the future. Our memories become richer as
we continue to gain new experiences.