Why the past is better than the future

I realized whenever my life gets more difficult I wish I could go back in time to “the good old days”. Except in the good old days I also wanted to go further back to other good old days until I was a kid, but only during summer vacation.

Why does this happen? What’s wrong with me?

You see, the past is predictable. It’s already happened, so we know what happens next. The future, in extreme contrast, is unknowable except for one thing. One thing we know will happen with 100% certainty. We die. Our life ends. And we don’t know when exactly that will be. And if life gets harder suddenly our impending death becomes more of a reality. If times are good and you’re making money and you’re accomplishing things you want to do, then the thought of death disappears and being mortal sounds like an abstract opinion and not a fact of reality.

That’s why the past will always be better than the future. Future you will be dead. Past you experienced life and even more life and things turned out okay. For a time.

When life becomes difficult, not even planning can make things better. How do you plan for not existing anymore? I used to plan things, like “I’ll write for Medium every day because I want to get my super smart thoughts across to others” or “I’ll start to work on thumbnails for my Youtube channels and maybe I…