Short term memory

One of the greatest flaws of human nature is short term memory, both voluntary and involuntary. What is voluntary short term memory? It's the short term memory we cause oursleves to suffer by imposing it on ourselves sub-consciously. Involuntary short term memory, by that definition then, is something really rare, because you really forget something because, deep down somewhere you actually wanted to forget it. Not in a way that may seem obvious to you or others, but unconscious to even yourself.

Voluntary short term memory is also a case of not being able to get yourself to want to remember something badly enough. Because, again, deep down inside you may not want to. It's a question of tendencies then. If you're able to fight the tendency to relegate any part of your memory to the short-term component, you'll never forget it. But it's not easy. Because if you're able to fight the natural tendencies that have set into your system with uncanny regularity and ease, you're super-human and you'll, as a rule, be super-successful.

Bad experiences and mistakes are almost always relegated to short term memory. Why? Shouldn't we want ourselves to keep that in long-term memory so that one can reflect upon these in order to prevent repetition of the same? The question really is how badly you want yourself to not repeat that mistake? Individuals who are hellbent upon learning from mistakes and bad experiences make sure at all costs that these are ingrained in their long term memories. Others who don't have a desire to do so that's strong enough are doomed to repeat these unpleasant unwanted mistakes.

Truly successful and great people never repeat mistakes, not only because they recognize their follies and admit the same, but also because they have these experiences and adjunct lessons engraved in red letters on their brains. Short term memory is more dangerous than we shall have ourselves believe. 50 first dates was romantic enough, but that's the stuff movies are made of. You're never supposed to try it at home anyway.