KCU/03/King Pins

Topic 24: Past still haunts us? Question: In light of the discussion in ch. 19 of How People Grow, what role do you think the past plays in our growth & how should we deal with our past? For instance, some people would argue that we can just forget the past & leave it entirely behind us. Others think that we can never escape our past & it will forever haunt us. What do you think? (Be sure to do more research into the issue. If the group cannot come to a consensus, feel free to have different group members each express their own opinions.)

Our Pasts: Why do they Haunt Us?

A past, a thing that everyone of us has, whether it is pleasant, or not so pleasant. It’s one of those things in our lives that all of us have to deal with, every minute of everyday. The way we deal with it, or manage it, makes us the kind of person that we are today. Some people choose to deal with their pasts in different way; let it haunt them and never try to do anything about, others act like they have no past or the past is past and they just don’t worry about it, or they try to reconcile with those they’ve done wrong and themselves, or they deal with the problem when it happens so that it doesn’t become a problem. . But which is the true and right way to deal with this problem, if it is a problem for you, well that is what we are going to discuss, in-depth, here.

What Kind of Things Haunt us?

There are many things in our past that can haunt us. Here is a small list that gives you an idea of what kind of things get to people:

 A sexual encounter that should have never happened  An angry outburst against someone you love  A death to someone you were close to  A relationship that went wrong  Personally facing a near death situation  Social rejection as a child or a young adult  A bad relationship with your parents  A divorce  Experiencing abuse of any kind  An addiction to drugs, alcohol, or gambling  An Eating Disorder  A bad decision in any form

These are the kind of things that tend to haunt people from the time of the incident, until it is resolved in one way, shape or form.

The past does still haunt us in a way. There are people who wish they could go back in time and change some of the things they did. For instance, when drunk drivers kill someone, they are usually full of remorse because once they sober up they know what they did and have to live with the fact that they took an innocent life. People who make stupid decisions always want to go back and fix things. On the other hand, everybody else that doesn’t regret or feel haunted by the past learns from the past and doesn’t make the same mistakes. Someone once told me to have no regrets, no matter what, just remember what was done and to make a different decision, one that will not haunt us. In a way, the past can haunt us, but only if we let it. It is completely our choice if the past haunts us. If we let the past haunt us, it could end up running our lives and stopping us from doing things that we enjoy. By: ryan white