“Often the future is
shaped not by what
we remember,
but by what
we forget.” 
Wendy Doniger

Forgetfulness is a seriously misunderstood phenomenon. It can be embarrassing to forget someone’s birthday or the name of someone you’ve known for many years. It can be frustrating to forget your sunglasses when you leave home on a sunny day or to forget to set the alarm clock to wake you up in the morning. It can be expensive to forget to turn off the air conditioning when you leave home for work in the morning, or miss a scheduled medical or dental appointment. It can also be alarming, indicating that a loved one might be developing Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia.  

I know I’ve experienced my fair share of forgetfulness through the years. And yes, at times it has been embarrassing, frustrating, expensive, and alarming. There is, however, a bright side to forgetting things.

Forgetfulness can be an absolute blessing, too. It can help us cope effectively with serious trauma from our past. It can help us to continue to nurture relationships with those who, at some point, may have disappointed us in some way. It can enable us to live a joy-filled and productive life even when we are no longer able to engage in activities we enjoyed earlier in our lives. 

In a March 2024 article published in Psychology Today, Dr. Robert Kraft spoke of the benefits of forgetting. He wrote, “Forgetting allows us to manage our complicated lives — encouraging us to remember what’s important, inspiring us to experience the present moment more fully, and restoring us after painful events in our lives.”

Kraft explained that “forgetting disconnects the intrusion of memory, placing us more in the perceptual moment and pushing away memories that might distract us from the pleasure of appreciating the present.” He goes on to say that “much of this forgetting is necessary for healthy functioning in a blooming, buzzing, vibrant, complicated, and occasionally disturbing world.”  

So the next time we have an experience of forgetfulness, perhaps it might be beneficial for us to go easy on ourselves and consider its benefits.