The good old days (are now)

Nostalgia is one helluva drug.

It’s free.
It’s easy to take.
It feels euphoric.
And like most, it leaves you with a come down.

I took some Nostalgia last night before bed after going through some pics of the last New Years Eve I spent with my mom and her cat. We stayed in and watched a movie.

It felt good.
And then I cried a bit.

Nostalgia.

Or said differently, choosing to go back in time and hangout in the past—some fond moment or good memory—for a bit.

It’s comforting to reminisce about “better days”. When things felt simpler. When we were younger. When there was a sense of adventure. When your career or life felt like a blank canvas. When you walked the isles of the video store finding a DVD for the weekend—elated when that movie you missed in theater was suddenly on the shelf.

We all have moments that feel warm and cozy and a little sad (in a good way) to revisit. Sad because we know that experience is gone. Finito. And we won’t get it back. Yet we’ve cocooned and preserved it—knowing with a single dose of Nostalgia we can go to those good old “better days”.

I often go back and think about my family Friday night dinners growing up. Breaking bread together. Laughing with each other. Teasing. Being teased. My little brother being sent to the corner—or sending himself to the corner in defiance. My dad telling me to stop worrying about my body and to just eat another scoop of ice cream. Vanilla with sprinkles on top.

Or my friends all coming over to my house every weekend while in school. Cars packed in the driveway. Going out. Being hungover together and negotiating if we could even afford KFC after a night out.

Good times. And there’s many more of them in the memory bank.

And from many visits to the vault, there’s three things I’ve come to believe.

I was bad at recognizing those good times while they were happening.

In the moments I think back to, I had problems and grievances and stress and plenty I was complaining about. Plenty of time then, in those moments, was spent thinking about the future. Time spent sitting at that dinner table looking forward and thinking about the moment when everything falls perfectly into place. Where I’ve finished the exams. When I have the job and money. And where, at last, I’ve got a girlfriend. In those now preciously remembered moments at the table, much of the real time in them wasn’t spent getting the richest experience I could from them, nope, they were spent thinking about the problems I had and what it would be like when they’re fixed—when the goals of the time are achieved.

When I moved to New York, me and my co-founder lived in a seriously shitty apartment. A real doozy. We had no friends and knew nobody and had a lot of pressure to make something of our time and investment coming here. We had little spending money for ourselves and counted every single penny in a Google Sheet. Everyone investor said no to us, and we had no idea how we’d actually stay in America past our 6 months. But we had energy, possibility, and little at stake if we failed.

I now live 2 streets up from that first apartment. I can see the roof of the building, and I often look down at it through eyes that have now seen everything I wanted back then. It was just a few years ago but feels like a different lifetime.

Yet I still look back at this period so fondly. Not because being broke was fun. It wasn’t. But because I was on an adventure with my friend, meeting and falling in love with the women I got to marry, finding a home in a new place, learning about startups, figuring out how to be an adult, and doing all the things to grow in my life and career.

Many of the things I complained about then and kept me up, are now the stories I love telling and thinking about.

Same thing with COVID. How many of us look back on being stuck at home and miss it a bit?

And across all these good times…

I had no idea when those periods or times or moments I now reminisce on were ending.

I think that’s why we feel sad sometimes, because we didn’t know how good that moment was until we look back on it, and because we didn’t know it was over until somewhere later in life.

Every experience and chapter of life has a last time. A closing credit. There was that last time on New Years I got to watch a movie with my mom. The last time my friends and I all lived in the same hometown. The last family Shabbas we had when my parents were together and we all lived at home.

Except, the universe gets a kick for making sure we never ever know it. We don’t know the last time, because in the moment, we usually don’t care. Why? Because we’re not noticing the extent of it. We’re not being present for those good old days or that good moment while we’re in them.

Because if we were…if we knew that was the last time…we’d definitely live it a little differently. Which is why when we look back on them, we usually romanticize them and iron away all the little crinkles that actually took us away from enjoying that moment fully. Memory is often, kindly, selective.

Which takes me to my last and most powerful belief.

I’m living in a time right now that I’ll certainly romanticize about later.

Do we have problems and stresses and creases in today’s story? Of course. Things Julia and I want to achieve? Of course. And I know that will be true of any time because it’s been true of every time. So I also know in a few years, I’ll look back on this version of life and know how good the times were. That the problems I have right now will someday be problems I’d gladly trade back for.

This is because our present circumstances, however imperfect they might be with how we want or imagine things to be, have so many pieces to it that our “future selves” will desperately miss.

I love my life right now and it’s full of good. It’s the best version of my life I’ve been lucky enough to live, and despite still being in the unpredictable shadow of grief, I have so much that makes me happy. A beautiful, smart, and creative wife. Our sleepy and healthy cats. A plant-filled home with a corner chair that gets washed in morning sun—my coffee corner—and the story we’re making together in our favorite neighborhood. Near friends and family—and the means to be able to see the ones far away, too. This newsletter. All of it.

I have so much to be grateful for.

“Remember the days when you prayed for what you have now.”

Yet, sometimes (often in fact) I lose perspective of that. The game keeps being played and I often hear myself saying things like “When we have…”.

So, with these three beliefs, there’s a few small things I’m trying to do better.

• Try my damndest to be present. Which means less thinking backwards, less thinking forwards, and more enjoying whatever I’m doing and wherever I am, because…

• I must remember that I’m living in the good old days right now. And the best way to live them is to just fucking enjoy living them. Enjoy the hardships and don’t over sweat the goals. To frame today like it’s the good old days—because I know someday soon I’ll say they will be—means a new found appreciation for all of it. No rushing through days or chapters necessary.

• And this doesn’t mean to live with rose-colored glasses—tough shit will still happen and it shouldn’t be ignored. But it means seeing the hard things slightly differently and witnessing all the things as they are. When I catch myself entangled in strong emotions or reactions, before getting swept away in them, to try notice them and allow myself to experience them. So, it’s actually less about distancing myself from the bad, but to give both the good and bad all my attention. Leaning in to all experiences.

• Also, to try my best to experience moments through the lens of “If this was the last time, what would I do? How would I be here, now?”. Maybe you stay out for one more song; put the phone down; have one more scoop of ice cream that you don’t rush though just to leave the table sooner; or stop thinking about what your friends are doing that night and just fully enjoy the movie.

• And if it seems sad to say “These are the good old days”, don’t let it be. Just remember, if “back then” was the good old days, and “now” is also the good old days, that also means there’s more many more good old days yet to come.

So yes, Nostalgia may make it feel like the good old days are behind you.
But the truth is, they’re also right now.

And while they’re also still ahead of you, the surest way to rob yourself of these good times is overthinking and projecting yourself to the next one.

The good times are now—we just need to notice that and be here for them.

Take that dose of Nostalgia responsibly, I hope you have a good day.

—Jaryd

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Good Times is a biased, but researched, guide to improving ourselves. Practical letters on self-discovery, psychology, work, life, philosophy, and other learnings about living a good life. If this was forwarded to you, sign up here for some Good Times in your inbox.