Why Yesterday Always Looks Better

From vinyl records and film cameras to corsets, classical literature and the endless “Roman Empire” jokes, our culture seems quietly obsessed with the past. Social media feeds are filled with soft-focus nostalgia: grainy photographs, candlelit desks, handwritten letters. Even people who never lived through certain decades speak longingly about them, convinced that things were somehow simpler, slower, or better. But why are we so determined to look backwards? 

Part of the answer lies in comfort. The past feels safe because it is finished. It cannot surprise us. We know how it ends. In contrast, the present is uncertain and the future, unpredictable. When the modern world feels overwhelming — with constant notifications, global crises and relentless change — earlier eras can seem calmer by comparison. Nostalgia edits history carefully, trimming away its harsher edges. We remember the music, the fashion, the aesthetics. We forget the disease, the inequality, the limited rights and the everyday hardships. 

Psychologists suggest that nostalgia can also strengthen identity. Looking back helps people feel connected — to childhood, to family, to a shared cultural memory. It creates a sense of continuity, as if we are part of something larger than the chaos of the present moment. In turbulent times, that continuity is reassuring. 

However, romanticizing the past can be misleading. No era was free from conflict or injustice. The “good old days” were rarely good for everyone. When we idealise history, we risk flattening it into an aesthetic rather than understanding it as a complex reality. A sepia-toned filter can make almost anything look beautiful, but it does not make it better. 

Perhaps what we truly long for is not the past itself, but the feeling we associate with it — simplicity, certainty, meaning. The irony is that people in every generation have believed that an earlier time was better. The present always feels messy because we are living inside it. 

The past is appealing because it is complete. It is a story with a beginning, middle and end. The present, by contrast, is unfinished. Yet maybe instead of romanticizing what has already happened, we should grant the same imaginative generosity to the world we are shaping now.  

One day, this moment too will be someone’s nostalgia. 

Sources- 

Nostalgia Is Important for Social Connection and Self-Identity | Psychology Today United Kingdom 

 Liza Arshad