Every day, flashes of thoughts, images and ideas run through our minds and are being fed to the memory bank in our brain. Some thoughts and images are impressed much more vividly than the others and sometimes they influence what we are. For instance, if one has a painful past, it may come to haunt him later in life. It really is up to him to accept and learn from what happened and move on.

In NBC’s sci-fi show Heroes, one of the gifted characters is a guy who can erase memories (aka The Haitian). There was one episode where they forced a guy to confess by threatening to erase his most treasured memories of his family. Another dramatic scene showed a remorseful Claire mourning over her father’s death and wanted to ask help from the Haitian to make her forget. Her boyfriend West didn’t agree with her. “Forgetting isn’t the answer,” he said. So true. It just got me thinking how scary it would be if all our memories will be taken away from us. They’re very much a part of us and contribute significantly to who we are.

There are some things we long to erase from our minds especially those hurtful memories of the past. But when they’re no more, it’s like a part of us is also gone. Then again we grow as stronger persons once we overcome the heartaches brought about by these painful memories – we learn how to cherish the good times and value more our achievements in life.