Ecclesiastes 7:10
Over fifty years ago, a book was published entitled The Good Old Days—They Were Terrible by Otto Bettmann. He described life in America from the late 1800s to the early twentieth century and portrayed it as hard, dirty, and unhealthy. Roads were poor. Medical treatment was so rudimentary that hospitals were only marginally helpful. Food was often adulterated by manufacturers, and politics was rife with graft. Yet we continue to reminisce romantically about earlier times as better, gentler, and kinder.
Yet the Scripture cautions us against viewing the past as necessarily the good old days. Ecclesiastes 7:10 says, “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.”
There are two main reasons we tend to look favorably on the past. The first concept to consider is that the more emotional an experience is, the more easily it is remembered. This applies to both positive and negative experiences. However, we tend to savor the good moments and dwell on them. We willingly replay them in our minds and expand upon their details. As a result, the brain often finds it easier to recall the good times.
Further, since positive experiences are agreeable, we tend to build those memories up in more favorable terms than may have actually been the case. Negative experiences are also useful to remember, since we want to avoid repeating a misadventure. Even so, it is understandable that we prefer not to revisit pain and discomfort down to the smallest detail. Consider how we forget physical pain. If you have suffered a broken bone or a severe cut, we can all agree it was truly painful—but the precise degree of that pain cannot be recalled accurately. We cannot measure it now; we simply remember that it hurt a great deal.
The second reason we tend to inflate the goodness of the past is the contrast effect with our present circumstances.Because we forget the true weight of yesterday’s burdens while polishing its brighter moments, the past begins to appear not as it was, but as we wish it had been. It becomes less a place we remember and more a place we escape to—a carefully edited refuge from the uncertainties that press upon us now.
The complaint that life was easier and simpler in the past is voiced by every generation, yet Scripture gently interrupts this pattern of thought. It is not merely that such comparisons are inaccurate; it is that they are unwise. They subtly draw our attention away from the only moment in which we can act, choose, and grow—the present.
If the past is softened by memory and the future is obscured by uncertainty, then clarity belongs only to now. The lesson, then, is not to discard the past, but to see it honestly—to resist the temptation to turn memory into myth. When we do, we are less likely to measure today against an illusion and more likely to engage it with purpose. The question is no longer whether the past was better, but whether we are living wisely with what has been placed before us today.