History – Lessons Learned to Be Better and Do Better
While we continue through these ‘Covid Times’.
Preparing for what comes next and taking things day by day, seemingly treading water until we wait for the next steps.
Sometimes struggling to keep our heads above water let alone facing forward.
Yet, amid all of the current events and struggles the world continues to face, we still have a tendency to look to the past.
In these fact finding missions we’ve put ourselves through where we look to history to find out not only what has happened in previous pandemics, but in other events in recent past. We look to find information.
Who.
What.
When.
Where.
And often most importantly – Why.
In the why we don’t often find all of the answers, but here is also potentially where we learn the most.
Sometimes the lack of a real ‘why’ is what motivates to learn from these experiences most of all.
Society has been very big lately on ‘cancelling’ things.
While there certainly is a large range of things that need cancelling, upgrading, or redoing.
Cancelling things entirely doesn’t make what happened go away.
We don’t have to like everything that has happened in the world before us.
We also don’t have to dislike things.
We can’t change what has happened in the past.
History is for the text books.
What we can do is learn from it – change our course of action by learning what civilizations, and society, has done right and almost more importantly – wrong – before us.
If while we are learning about history we find things we don’t like – things that offend us, hurt us, or give us more questions than answers.
This is good.
Unsettling can be good.
Unsettling can cause movement.
If we take the things we find unsettling and concerning, offensive even.
Instead of pretending they never happened, or worse – cancelling them – we take the feelings they stir up inside and we learn from them.
We act on them.
We take these lessons and we teach others.
Teach history not for what it was – but what it can lead into and how the world can be better.
The mistakes and actions of others in the past don’t always have to lead to the demise of society.
The past doesn’t have to tell the story of our future.
This last year where we find ourselves in closer quarters with our thoughts, and perhaps reading and maybe even learning more than we normally would.
We’ve indulged ourselves in the lessons that history has offered and used this time to be vocal.
We – Society – has stepped up.
While in some ways we’ve tried to cancel things and erase the past.
In other ways we’ve rewrote our future.
Giving voices to those who have for so long remained voiceless.
We have stepped up and pushed the boundaries on things where there should never have been boundaries in the first place.
We’ve embraced and promoted different cultures.
We’ve emboldened the power of race.
We’ve extended love to those who have often found themselves loveless.
We’ve given powers to those powerless.
Gender, skin colour, sexual orientation, or maybe a lack of any of the above – have been given a voice and a priority.
While all lives are important, Black lives matter too.
For centuries the colour of someones skin has dictated their place in life.
The person themselves has not always mattered.
At the same time, the world has been told that a man must marry a woman and a woman must marry a man.
Today we know that this is anything but true.
In fact, what we are born as in terms of gender, religion, culture, beliefs – this does not dictate our future or path in life.
We are now free to make our own choices.
Free to have our own beliefs.
Free to embrace what we truly need in our lives.
History has done all of this for us.
Not by shunning things for years and restricting beliefs, but for giving us the lessons we needed to know that we can do better.
We don’t need to forget what has happened in our past, but embrace it as being the push we needed to ensure the same mistakes aren’t repeated.
Guest Blogger Rayna Davies
Rayna Davies is a graduate and practitioner of Business Management. She has developed an expertise in blogging, covering subjects like travel, world events and security. Having grown up with a father who has developed an expertise in Physical Security and Executive Protection in the RCMP and two major corporations, she has personally observed and experienced many security details. These experiences have included personally meeting HM Queen Elizabeth, Prime Minister Jean Chretien and many celebrities. She presently assists Sentinel Security in Executive Protection workshops and guest blogging and also assists Gloprosec Preventative Services in Intelligence gathering and Business Administration. Her passions include World travel, having visited every continent.
