This song just speaks to me right now. At first listen, I thought it was just another of the band's catchy tunes; some lyrics that are easy to catch onto and a fun beat that you can sway to when driving.
But then I *heard* the lyrics, actually heard them. Several lines struck a cord with me, but in particular this one: I refuse to look back thinking days were better just because they're younger days.
How true is that? How often do we romanticize the past, no matter how awful or gruesome it actually was to endure them?
How frequently do we glorify the past because it was easier? I do this all the time, especially with things as trivial as classes. I come home for weekends or breaks and help my sister with homework that she's struggling and I just think "wow, i wish these were my problems..." but in her reality, these are a huge obstacle for her. At one point, they were for me too. The only thing that's changed between the two are the life experiences that I have and that she has yet to acquire. Those days weren't really better or easier. They were just younger.
By human nature, we compare everything- our past to our present, ourselves to our neighbors, our possessions to our desires. It never ends. We are stuck in one of two states: reminiscing on what we had or dreaming about what we wish we could have.
This song made me very conscious of how I occupy my own thoughts. Why do I focus so much on the past? I can't relive it, so why am I chaining myself to those moments, to the memories that are so tainted with feeling and emotions that are so distant that the memory itself is no longer accurate? Why do any of us do this to ourselves?
Just because something happened in a younger time, it doesn't make it better. This present moment... it holds so much more promise than a fleeting memory from the past could ever hold. I choose to hold onto this moment, this minute, by gosh, even this second.
To put it simply, "I refuse to look back thinking days were better just because they're younger days."
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