Past glories
JOB APPLICANTS, including senior executives switching companies to an even more elevated position, are routinely asked to submit their biodata. This highlights their work history, especially the high points, which are in bold print. Recorded achievements are central in the final interview and a license to go ego-tripping — so you did this all by yourself?
In social settings, unrelated to job interviews or political campaigns, talking about glorious moments in one’s past can turn a person into a pest. For that matter, keeping old wounds of humiliation from closing is just as tiresome. It’s best to leave the past in a dark attic of the mind, to be visited only when extracting lessons learned.
Past achievements certainly enhance one’s biodata. But relying on past glories has been dismissed as “resting on one’s laurels,” denoting an inertia in making any effort towards future accomplishments.
The phrase about “laurels” harks back to the ancient practice in Rome when victors of chariot races or wars were crowned with laurel wreaths (leaves of a plant) as symbols of honor. So, wearing old symbols of excellence denotes putting too much store on shrubberies long past their blooming days. Can these laurels then move from the crown to the seat of the pants?
And even here in this Roman custom, the man on the chariot doing his victory lap around the arena is accompanied by a charioteer who whispers in his ear “sic transit gloria” (this glory too shall pass) as if to remind the victorious celebrant to eventually come down from his temporary perch.
A fixation on a former high-profile status often defines those no longer having any new heights to aspire for. Few things can be more humiliating than a formerly powerful person, once at the top of the food chain, now cast in the shadows, regaling anyone who cares to listen about the perks he once enjoyed and the people he used to boss around. Thus, are old people dismissed when repeating stories from long ago depicting now powerful personalities as their underlings from long ago.
Can a fixation with the past be a simple case of nostalgia? The term comes from two Greek words — nostos (homecoming) and algos (sorrow). A sentimental longing for the past feeds a type of sadness. Alumni groups celebrating their golden jubilee always see the past with rose-colored glasses. Were they better than the present batch with access to online research and essays from Chat GPT?
Still, the past is a comfort zone for those selling nostalgia.
Revivals of old musicals with a modern twist are blockbusters in the world of theater. So too are clubs featuring music from the ’70s or ’80s to lure the oldies back to stroll down memory lane. The influx of concerts featuring ageing bands (not even the original members) and names vaguely remembered from the past can fill up small concert venues with generous seating areas for wheelchairs and nurses’ stations.
Living in the past leads to an unwillingness to tackle the troublesome issues of the present. It can be a denial strategy which bestows an inordinate importance to triumphs that only the triumphant can remember with fondness.
Who cares if you once were an important person that many lined up to meet? Your former supplicants have themselves risen in stature and may consider you a relic of their humble past. They may occasionally introduce you as their mentor and acknowledge your role in their ascendance.
Setting aside past glories can be a refreshing attribute of distinguished personalities. It’s best for them to watch quietly from the sidelines as younger players get their star turns.
Modesty arising from a realization of the irrelevance of previous high perches on now forgotten pedestals invites an appreciative reception especially from those too young to remember. If someone familiar with that glorious period in the past mentions, even just in passing, one’s previously awe-inspiring status, it is best to shrug it off — Oh well, that was all so long ago. (Shall we ask for the dessert menu?)
And when conversation threatens to return to that historic episode, it is best to veer off to something off tangent. Do you still want a small café latte’ with brown sugar? Such a conversational side road may make the other person suspect that you’re already losing your marbles. And well, she may even be right.
Tony Samson is chairman and CEO of TOUCH xda
