You Will Always Remember Your Failures Much Longer Than Your Successes

Within our autobiographical memories there’s a special place reserved for embarrassing situations for which we ourselves are responsible. The kinds of situations which still make us blush when we recount them years later. Where looking back you still hope the ground will open and swallow you up!  Such as using the wrong name for someone, or asking after someone who’s long dead.

This sharp focus on negative memories has a function; it helps you to keep a healthy self-image, reminding us that we are fallible.

But it has its disadvantages too.  In moments of depression those painful experiences come bubbling up.

So next time you’re lying awake mulling over your weakness, remember that it’s a one-sided image of yourself, that unpleasant memories have been etched deeper in the brain, and programmed to reappear at such moments.  All the positive aspects of yourself have been wiped from the slate!