Why Memory Is Not the Past

We speak of memory as a recording, but it is closer to a reconstruction. Each time we recall something, we rebuild it, and the rebuilding is influenced by who we have since become.

This is why two people can remember the same event differently and both be sincere. It is also why the stories we tell about our past are, in a real sense, ongoing choices about our present.

You cannot change what happened. You can examine the story you keep telling about what it meant.