What If You Could Choose to Forget Certain Memories?

Oh man, imagine this—what if you could actually choose to forget certain memories? Like, just snap your fingers and poof, that embarrassing moment from middle school is gone forever. No more cringe-worthy flashbacks when you’re trying to fall asleep at night. Sounds pretty sweet, right?

But, of course, life wouldn’t be that simple (because why would it be?). Think about it. Sure, you could erase that time you spilled coffee all over yourself during a meeting, but what if you accidentally deleted something important, like your wedding day or that really nice compliment someone gave you once?

I mean, I get it—there are some memories we all would like to erase. Like, I wouldn’t mind forgetting that one time I tried to impress my crush by pretending to know how to surf. Spoiler alert: I did not know how to surf. But if I forgot that, I might also lose the lesson I learned about being honest and not, you know, making a fool of myself in front of a crowd. Yikes.

Plus, how do you even decide which memories to forget? Is there like a little menu in your brain, and you’re just scrolling through like, “Hmm, I’ll delete that awkward first date but keep the memory of the good pizza I ate that night”? And what if you change your mind? Like, “Wait, actually, I want that memory back.” Sorry, too late. Bye-bye memory forever.

Then there’s the whole thing about how our bad memories actually shape us into who we are. Like, think about all the things you’ve learned from the tough stuff. If you start erasing the bad times, do you lose the lessons too? If I forgot all the times I was too scared to take a leap, I might forget how important it is to be brave. Or worse, I’d repeat the same mistakes because—well, I wouldn’t remember making them the first time!

And let’s not even get started on how weird it would be socially. Imagine you’re hanging out with a friend, and they start reminiscing about that wild road trip you took together, but…you deleted it. You’d just be sitting there like, “Yeah, totally! What a fun time…wait, where did we go again?” Awkward.

On the flip side, maybe forgetting would feel like a fresh start? A clean slate to move on without being weighed down by the past. But let’s be honest—wouldn’t we just end up making more cringy memories to replace the ones we erased? Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that embarrassing moments are like boomerangs. You can try to throw them away, but they always come back.

So yeah, maybe this whole memory-erasing thing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. As much as I’d love to forget my failed surfing attempts, I think I’ll keep those memories right where they are—locked in my mental cringe folder, ready to be pulled out whenever I need a good laugh or a reminder not to take myself too seriously.

Hope your week is off to a less embarrassing start than mine was back then!