​Recently I bought a bluegrass CD because I find some of this music very enjoyable and uplifting. I usually don't pay much attention to lyrics, but one of the songs was so enjoyable I found myself trying to sing it. To do that, I had to pay attention to the words. This is what I ended up with:
 
"The wind is blowing around the cabin. I hate to hear that lonesome sound. I'm all alone and so downhearted since my true love has up and gone. I hate to see the sun a sinkin'. Another night to toss and turn. Another night to be without her, another night for her and him. She had no cause to go and leave me, for I had never done her wrong. She left our home and little children and with another man she is gone. The children they are sound asleeping, for they don't know their mother's gone. What will I do when they awaken? Can I tell them their mother's gone?"
 
The tune was catchy and the beat was fast, but what a downer story to be tapping the toe to. Why would anyone want to memorialize such a miserable situation by putting it to music? When you think about it, many popular songs and movie stories are similarly depressing.
 
It's not just lyrics, but music itself can send many people into depressive and melancholy moods. As life accumulates behind us, genres of music remain associated with each stage of that history. There are the songs of our parents' time, of high school and college, music we watched our children enjoy, and so on through every stage in life. Music can elicit powerful memo­ries and sentimentality.
 
We naturally want to revisit our history, but by and large it is not a very healthy thing to do. A school reunion can make some people depressed for months. The music, sights, smells, tastes, and social events experienced year after year during holidays are powerful memory stimulants as well. These seasons often bring depression and even increased violence and suicide rates.

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​Holidays, birthdays, movies, television, and music all take advantage of our sentimentality. If there is a dollar to be made, no matter how miserable it may make people feel, it's going to happen—again and again, year after year.
 
There is no way to avoid all sad memories, but neither is it smart to seek out reminders of them. Think about it. Why voluntarily pay to see a tear-jerking melodramatic movie that leaves us feeling awful? Will we not face enough problems in our own lives without being entertained by those of others?
 
If we've ever lost a true love, already know we're going to die, face aging every day in the mirror, watched our children grow up and move away, and face trauma and tragedy in our own lives, why would we want to voluntarily seek situations, music, and entertainment that would remind us of this? So true is the aphorism, "The key to happiness is a bad memory."
 
Sometimes we think we must revisit the past in honor of it. But if the memory isn't refreshing and does not create optimism, it's not a wise place to go. The past cannot be relived, nor can it be changed. Pay respects and try to move on.
 
The trick, as we get older and have more life behind than in front of us, is to keep facing forward. We need to fully engage the present and put things into our lives that have a future.
 
By being active, socially engaged, always creative, inquisitive, reading, listening to audiotapes, watching instructional videos or television, going to lectures, sitting in on classes, and engaging in challenging hobbies or sports, we make life present and forward, not backward. The present and the future, unlike the past, hold events over which we have control. Control has everything to do with mental well-being.
 
If we stop growing, being challenged, and reaching out to the future, our mind will necessarily settle in on the only thing it has remaining, the past. The result is hopelessness, helplessness, despair, depression, and lost health.
 
Get engaged in the here and now. Do things that create prospects for fun in the future. Plan a project, work toward it, and determine to be the best. Whether the goal is grandiose and worldwide in scope or humble and in the kitchen, yard, shelter, or local gymnasium, start today. Take control of life. Don't linger in the past and permit hopelessness to take root. Such a positive, forward-looking life can do more for health than almost anything else we could do.
 
The present is the time we can do some­thing about. The past is history but today is a gift; ­that's why, as the saying goes, it's called present. Use it to make the future bright, fun, challenging, hopeful, and healthy.