On a quiet and solitary afternoon, sitting in a café, listening to nostalgic music, a scene suddenly came to mind:
On the last afternoon in the mountain city of Chongqing, my friends and I met a café, in the coffee shop on the 7th floor underground, the name of the shop was written by the boss himself, the green plants at the door and in the store were planted and maintained by the boss himself, opened the door to see a must read for admission, all written by the boss himself, sitting in the shop smelling coffee, chatting about life, especially calm. So much so that now that I think about it, my heart is still very calm, a feeling of tranquility.
The great philosopher of the 20th century, Winnie the Pooh, once said: "We have always known only to play without emotion, but we never realized that we are making future memories." "Some days we remember because we were sad. Grief is part of the human experience, part of our memories, and what makes us who we are today. However, Danish author Mike Wiking's study of happiness in Why I Only Remember You shows that people are happier if they have a positive view of their past and like nostalgia. Nostalgia is an ancient human emotion that everyone has. Nostalgia can create positive emotions and strengthen people's self-confidence. Makes people feel loved. In other words, long-term happiness depends on the ability to describe your past life in positive terms.
First, use the magic of the first time
We always remember the novelty that stood out from the crowd. This phenomenon is known as the isolation effect, or von Restov effect.
Yataro Matsuura wrote a passage about living in the United States in his book "Today," "To Live with Your Heart":
I spent a few years wandering in the United States after dropping out of high school. At that time, this was a "failure", and even a gray period in my life, but I did not expect that unconsciously, this experience had become an indispensable treasure that constituted the current me.
In fact, when reading some celebrity biographies, we can also find a lot of nostalgia. Several studies have shown that our brains are more likely to remember new, unusual days. Research by British researchers Kirian Cohen and Dorothy Faulkner found that 73% of vivid memories were either first-time experiences or something unique. Novel experiences are processed more cognitively by the brain, and therefore these memories are better encoded and stored. That's the magic of the first time. Extraordinary days will make us unforgettable,
The first time I left home, the first date, the first time I went to the beach, the first time I saw the sunset, thinking about these first times is still fresh in my mind, and every meeting carries a sweet happiness.
In general, these time markers and other transformations of scenes for the first time in life are the basis for forming autobiographical or episodic memories. We will remember the things before and after these signs very clearly, and if we want to slow down our lives, remember some moments that make our lives unforgettable We must remember to use the magic of the first time. In daily life, we can also consider using this method to transform ordinary daily life into unusual experiences and broaden the long river of our lives.
Second, use multiple senses
The senses are unique triggers for recall, remembering things through association, ensuring that something in your experience can take you back to that moment. The more we use our senses, such as sight, smell, hearing, taste, and touch, the more vividly we can remember things, the more clues we prepare, and the more likely we are to remember and recall the memories that felt like they belonged to proust moments.
(1) Taste
Happy memories are:
Walk with my mom to the streets of the town where I grew up, eating lemon-flavored Italian gelato.
When I was a child, my mother used the oven to bake Pablo peppers. The fire roasts, the peppers crack and crackle, and I love the taste.
"With my best friends and teammates from all over the country —
Start eating marshmallow chocolate fillers (with two whole wheat biscuits to fill the cotton
Flower fudge and chocolate).
We've all had this experience, a taste, a sound, a scene, a touch that can send us back in time, a feeling that reminds you of how loved you were, how happy you were.
It's not just the sense of taste that can trigger our memories. Smell can also be very effective in triggering specific memories, for example, like now there are many smells, the library is to keep the smell in the bottle, according to the mood to choose their own different memories to relive.
Like taste and smell, music can also allow us to travel through time and space. A single note can make us go back to that time, that place, and feel the emotions of that time. You immediately go back to the old days, as if you never left. Like someone said, every favorite song is followed by an untold story. And this time travel will in turn affect our taste for music.
Just like I like "City of Stars" of "City of Philharmonic", every time I hear this song, I think of the persistence and struggle of the heroes and heroines in the movie for their dreams.
Every year, humans take more than 100 billion photos, and 100 billion is 1000 billion. I take a lot of photos every year, and the photos are stored and archived according to the year. Every time I see these photos, it reminds me of happy memories in my life. A picture of a food, a picture of a child smiling, a picture of the sky, a view of the sea, and so on, each photo is a record of my daily life and highlight moments.
If you keep a journal, write down all your senses, what you see, smell, hear, and feel, and put in our Memory Bank. All our feelings can take us back in time, to the time and place of our happiness, and they can also be triggers for happy memories.
Third, the connection gives meaning
Many of us get used to our daily routine, getting up, eating breakfast, taking the bus to work, then working, taking the car home, watching TV, going to bed, and so on. It's easy to forget about days like this. What people remember are those special days: milestones in our own lives, moments when we feel meaningful, moments when we feel connected to ourselves and the people we love, to the world, to our lives. In the Happiness Memories study, 37 percent of happiness memories were memories that were given meaning, such as the day I got married, walked on the beach with my husband on my wedding anniversary, the day my son was born, went for a walk on the beach with my grandfather on a Saturday morning, received a thank-you note from my daughter, adopted a son, went on my first outing, and drove 200 kilometers down the highway on a snowy winter afternoon. Our happy memories are all because of our memories of those "special" days in our lives.
In fact, "special" is because of attention, attention will remember. We only remember what we see that makes sense to us, only when we are immersed in it with all our heart. This moment doesn't have to be on some important day, wedding or birth etc. It could also be the connections we form in our daily lives. These trivial moments may seem inconspicuous to others, but they make us remember them for a lifetime, and it is these trivial moments that become the major events in our lives.
"The first time my daughter picked up her head and said to me, 'I'm so happy, when I first heard my child call Mom, etc.'" These thousands of moments make up our common story. They connect us and others like molecules and atoms. You will find out when you read or hear happy memories of others. These memories are always associated with others: grandfathers, grandmothers, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, nephews, nieces, uncles, aunts, boyfriends.
Or, as Forrest Gump put it: "The way young people remember things is really funny." I don't remember being born, I don't remember the first Christmas present I got, I don't remember how old I was when I first had an outdoor picnic, but I do remember when I first heard the sweetest sounds in the vast world. We love people we remember the most. We will also find ways to preserve the memories with them.
Our happy memories always show the people we love, and we feel the meaning of life when we connect with others and the fruits of the world. Plus, we have that experience when we've accomplished an important goal, reached an important milestone, or when we feel like we've reached all our potential. Happy memories are those moments when we become our dream selves.
"Successfully pass a particularly difficult exam." First marathon. "I was finally admitted to college" Looking at these memories written by others, you can feel their pride, hear the cries of victory, and understand their inner dreams and hopes. The mountains they've climbed, the marathons they've run, the college acceptance letters they've opened, the big sales orders they've made, these are all memorable moments that mean a lot to them.
These important moments are the fragments that make up our lives. We will remember those moments that determine our lives, those moments that determine who we are, those moments when we finally become the person we want to be.
Write at the end
Sometimes, looking back and revisiting old times allows us to better plan our future journeys.
Remember, one day, your past will flash before your eyes, and all you have to do is make sure it's worth watching.
The magic of the first time, use your senses, be attentive, create meaningful moments, use emotional highlighters, remember your peak moments and moments of struggle, use stories to beat the forgetting curve, outsource memories and other raw materials to plan out happy memories. All memories are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that shows us what happy memories are made of, what ingredients are needed, and why they stay in our minds.