Let’s go back to 2015 and remember the ever-emotional movie Inside Out from Pixar. The main character, Riley, starts losing her core memories when she experiences the major life change of moving. She loses essential emotions Joy and Sadness, causing other emotions like Anger, Fear and Disgust to come to the forefront of her mind. These emotions drive Riley to dwell on her past and look back as if she has lost something. This eventually changes when Joy and Sadness come back into the picture, joining forces to create new core memories that show how sadness can lead to joyful moments when surrounded by loved ones. This provides Riley with optimism, helping her to make new and positive memories with. Just like Riley, we’re made up of water and blood … and memories! We’re made of the good and even bad memories. These are what shape our personalities, our being.
They shine a bright light on our bad days, and can also dim our good days if we let them. When we feel this happening, we can see photos of happy times taken “on this day last year” come up on our phones, or we can revisit places where beautiful memories were created to make us smile. We learn how to let our positive memories guide us without denying those negative ones, because they are all a part of us. The memories that replay in our minds when we catch the scent of our favorite childhood foods, when we see our favorite childhood toys in the store again, or when we wear special jewelry given to us by loved ones, connect us to the most important people and places in our lives. The power of remembering the best day of your life gives you the strength to push yourself when you don’t feel that way.
When we find ourselves in situations asking us to face a crippling fear, we use past memories of when we conquered other difficulties to get through it. Remembering the first time your teacher scolded you makes you a better learner and teaches resilience. There are so many ways that our memories influence our personalities, and this is how we grow and become stronger as human beings. Sometimes, we might feel that our Joy has gotten lost, and that is perfectly ok! We just have to remember that she will always come back, as long as we don’t let our negative emotions overtake us. If we use those hard days to strengthen ourselves, and make the most out of the best days, we’ll be just fine.