Since the beginning of civilization, artists, healers, and justice-seekers have wrestled with the impact of the past on the present and the future.
In William Faulkner's novel "Requiem for a Nun," there's the iconic observation that "The past is never dead. It's not even past."
Tribal shamans helped rid troubled minds of trauma residue.
And, those appointed to determine degree of guilt, like Jack McCoy in "Law & Order," have factored in a Dickensian childhood.
But in this digital era, the past is losing its existential elegance.
In Europe, thanks to the "right to be forgotten" privacy law, the past is now being defined in terms of links on search engine Google. That's specific to European law.
But, aspects of it could be exported to the U.S.
The past of so many Americans could be erased through collective action by Congress, lawyers, and public relations firms specializing in reputation management. For those who can afford high-powered "digital scrubbing," that's already happening.
In Fortune, David Meyer reports:
"The right to be forgotten ... was established by Europe's top court in 2014. The ruling held that Google ... must remove links to material about a person, if that individual asks it to do so, and if the information is 'inaccurate, inadequate, irrelevant or excessive."
So far in Europe, there have been 655,000 requests. Google has given the okay to disappearing almost 44% of them. About a third deal with personal information.
If this option becomes open to those in the U.S. it could mean a second chance for so many aging professionals. Those negative aspects of their past which employers and clients bump into in the present would no longer exist. Except maybe in their trauma-filled brain, which can be an even more serious obstacle.
In my coaching over the years - currently, it's focused on those over-50 - I have observed how much the past keeps displaced professionals stuck.
After I delivered a talk to unemployed older lawyers at the New York State Bar Association, several lawyers confided to me this: The one piece of their past which they assumed caused the current reversal of fortune - that is, being jobless. That assumption, I was convinced, was the problem. Not the reality.
The coaching focused on changing the perception of the past. The past may never be past. But it, even the most negative, can be re-interpreted as a key building block in a life.
The classic examples of a dark past as the platform for extraordinary accomplishment range from Paul in the New Testament to Watergate villain Chuck Colson.
On the other hand, in Shakespeare's drama, the tragic heroes such as Hamlet and King Lear can't find their way out of force field of the past.
Mental torment seems to be their comfort zone.
The reality is that, even until digital links are disappeared in the U.S., aging professionals can re-engineer their past.
Coaching on all aspects of aging, from careers to managing finances. Complimentary consultation. Sliding scale fees. Please contact aging expert Jane Genova janegenova374@gmail.com. Read her syndicated site http://over-50.typepad.com.