Nostalgia, Were They Good Times or Are We Misguided?

They say everything comes back around, and they probably aren't wrong, whoever they are in the first place. Big sunglasses, low rise jeans, Versace escq print, capris, vintage trucker hats and weirdly, smoking, the Y2K is back in a big way. Nostalgia is hitting us all hard at the moment, but was life really better back then or are we just remembering through a rosy haze?

We don't want nostalgia when life's easy. We want it when things feel like a lot. And life feels like a lot right now. The cost of living, career prospects, the dating pool and don't even get us started on current world leaders. There's worry for our futures, worry for our parents aging and worry that we're getting cheated on. And suddenly the scandals, celebrities, ipods, skinny eyebrows and poor fashion choices are looked back like they were the best times.

There is of course some science about this. Cognitive research shows our brains naturally remove discomfort over time whilst keeping the positive moments. This mental editing acts like a soft, golden filter over memories, even as far as making difficult past times feel nice or comfortable in hindsight. If we retained the sting of every failure, embarrassment or time of hardship, we would find it incredibly difficult to find the resilience needed to carry on. So our brains protect us, removing the feelings of dread, pain, anxiety or fear leaving behind only a highlight reel of good times or the feeling of having fewer responsibilities.

But here's where we think it gets a bit complicated, because maybe we're not just being delusional. Maybe life actually was a bit easier back then. Houses cost less, degrees cost less, a starting salary could still get you a flat and a social life, work didn't burn us out as the standard. We weren't checking six different apps a day to see how the world was falling apart, mostly because we didn't have a phone with us 24/7, the news was on for half an hour and if you missed it then you didn't know. We had less but we also had more time. More time to be bored, more time to wait for things, the world wasn't an instant flow of information, over stimulation, instant ordering and shortcuts.

Maybe that's the trick of it. The world wasn't calmer back then, we were just further from it. Twelve year old us wasn't reading about interest rates or climate reports or geopolitics at 11pm in bed. We were worrying about who liked our MSN status and if Becky was going to invite us to her party next weekend. The world's problems were always there, we just weren't the ones carrying them yet. Maybe that's what we need to survive today. We can't change the world but we can change how much we see of it.

So buy the Von Dutch cap, play all the Nelly songs, leave your phone at home, unplug from the world and see how you feel. Take twenty minutes of pretending we're 24 again with nothing on our mind and nothing on our bank statement. Just maybe leave the low rise jeans behind. Oh and the smoking.