You Think the “Good Old Days” Are Over—Here’s Why You’re Wrong

Namya Aggarwal

A runner, Writer and student (12^th Class)

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This essay by Namya Aggarwal reflects on why people often feel the past was better than the present. The author argues that nostalgia makes us idealize earlier times, but in reality the “good old days” are relative — every moment can become cherished once it’s over. The article suggests practicing gratitude and recognizing that the present is just as valuable as any past era we remember fondly.

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Drowning in nostalgia, I began thinking. Why am I sinking into this thought of what once used to be?

Why do I hate where I currently am?

Why do I think so fondly about the same times that I once wanted to escape, just like today?

Why is my feed filled with reminiscences about the past, where the music, movies and people used to be so much better?

And then I realised. Its the embodiment of

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them”.

Spoiler alert, the good old times aren’t the 90s or the 80’s or even the 40’s, back when lifestyles used to be cheaper than a bottle of a coke or when Instagram reels hadn’t ruined our lives or when we were still being ruled by monarchs.

The good old times are now. Its every second that passes us without us realising. Its good because it happened and we got to be a part of it. The good old times are 2015, but also 2025.

I think gratitude, as clichéd as it may sound, is key to realising now is the luckiest time to be alive. It’s the fact that things probably may not get better. A lot of the nostalgia we are prone to is probably because we were so happy then, versus now.

It’s probably the feeling of missing younger and more active times. It probably arises from the poignant feeling of becoming older.

It’s because I know one thing for a fact. I guarantee you, our parents or grandparents were almost as happy as we are now when they were younger.

“Things were so simpler back then. No, they weren’t! People wanted flying cars back then. They wanted better internet connectivity because they didn’t want to spend hours rummaging through dusty books in the library.

They wanted mobile phones to talk to people across the country. We, as mankind, wanted to get out of those times as much as we want to get out of these times.

Fifty years down the line, right now would be the good old times.

The good old times are variable. It’s not fixed. And that’s the best part. Because it shows that the good old times are just the time you were the happiest. It’s not just the time when Elvis was alive or when hipsters roamed around.

Nostalgia is what you can call “rose-tinted glasses”. It’s a film that has no climax, just the resolution. It deletes all the bad parts because probably that’s all we can handle. Our mind knows us too well to remember the times when we couldn’t afford a meal or the times when a deadline filled us with trepidation. This is what is called is called rosy-retrospection. (More on this in another article)

I am so sorry for this, but I need to share a sermon on gratitude. If we are just thankful that we get to be part of an era of time when we get to curate cute Pinterest boards, make customised playlists for special moments in life, hey, even doom scroll, we’d all be better off!

Let’s be happy that we live in one of the most accepting and liberal of times, maybe that too has its own cons, but what doesn’t? I truly think we are in the prime of the world.

Everyone wants to bring back 2015.

“Lets make 2025 the new 2015. And sure, the world peaked back then. We had Taylor’s 1985 and Maroon 5 crashing weddings, and we had Kim K’s butting champagne and Twitter.

But 2025 is going to be looked back on by future gen alphas as THE YEAR.

We got the Summer I Turned Pretty, K-pop Demon Hunterz and Labubus. We got the downfall of P Diddy and all the crazy conspiracy theories behind Donald. And finally, we got the Victoria’s Secret Show.

Its been pretty crazy, and I think it’s just a matter of acknowledging that stuff’s just as good as it was back then. We were kids, so it was better before, but adulting isn’t all sucky.

Enjoy your teenage years or your 20s or your 30s or your 40s because this year will pass, and so will next and the next till now is the past, and it’s all we can remember for a good time.