Are You at a Garden Party?

I wake up this morning with the words from Ricky Nelson’s song Garden Party running through my head

But it’s all right now, I learned my lesson well.
You see, ya can’t please everyone, so ya got to please yourself

I assume the lyrics are a leftover from a dream I don’t remember, so to try to see the context I look up the lyrics and find the link above.

The context of the chorus - the lyrics running through my head, is a story about getting together with old friends to remember times past. But, in the search to relive the past, the present isn’t recognized.

When I got to the garden party, they all knew my name
No one recognized me, I didn’t look the same

How often do we try to recreate something from our past, ignoring where we are now?

How often do we try to bring back that old feeling?

How often do we relate to the model we have built in our minds, even when it is out of step with what is actually present in our lives?

There is nothing wrong with recalling the past. We, and our world now, is it’s fruit.

There is nothing wrong with reminiscing. It recalls us to who we are, how we got here, and where we’re going.

But when it becomes a mask hiding the present and the future, with Ricky Nelson we can only say

But if memories were all I sang, I rather drive a truck

Now I just have to find where I’m at a garden party.

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