Disclaimer: Get ready for a lot of The Lion King quotes and references.
“You have to put the past behind you,” is one of the more famous quotes from Disney’s The Lion King. Such a small, short, simple quote holds so much meaning. After the death of Mufasa and Scar’s manipulation, Simba runs away and leaves home to forget about everything. A few days later, we meet Timone and Pumba who deliver the infamous putting the past behind you quote. So, what does this movie and that quote have to do with any of what I am talking about? Well, Timone and Pumba, though the comic relief of the film, are wiser than we think. They know what’s up. They know how to live life without giving two $h!%s.
All of us have been Simba at one point in our lives whether we like it or not. We have all formed a belief about ourselves, a certain object, or an experience based on one bad thing that happened. Sure, Simba faced extreme trauma, but he has formed that trauma into a belief about himself; he killed his father (spoiler alert: it’s not true). I can vouch for this experience. I too have been to Simba once. I too have let one bad thing that happened to me form a belief about myself. I led myself to believe something that I thought would follow me throughout my entire life when I should have just let it make me grow as a person. At one point, Pumba flips Timone’s words saying, “You have to put your behind in your past,” meaning always look ahead to what is coming and don’t focus so much on the past.
As Simba grows Nala comes back to find help. Scar has ruined life for the lionesses and now there is no food or water left for them. When Nala finds Simba, she asks him to come back but he refuses because of his past. Nala, who doesn’t understand what is going on, is angered and asks why he won’t come back to save her and his family. Simba explains to her that past-him is not present-him and he only said he wanted to be king because he was a child then. After their small argument, Simba and Nala run off to think about everything that just went wrong. Simba, while running off, runs into Rafiki who delivers the most well-known line, “The past can hurt, but you can either run from it, or learn from it.” Simba, taking in what he just said, realizes he has been running from fear his entire life. As a child, his father told him, “Being brave doesn’t mean you go looking for trouble.” What Mufasa meant by this is even the strongest and biggest kings get scared too. Being brave means that you are mature enough to understand what your fears are and not turn your back on them.
What does all this Lion King business have to do with past you not being future you? Well, it’s as simple as that, past you is not and never will be future you unless you let it. By standing up to your past you are being brave, in Mufasa’s eyes. You are acknowledging, “yes what happened to me is bad and it’s ok to be sad about it, but I cannot be sad about it forever.” We all make mistakes, we all have flaws, but those mistakes and flaws are only a blip in our lives. They are little words in the big book that is our life. What I am saying is probably very confusing. Should we forget about our past? No. Because if we did… we wouldn’t be as strong as we are today and we wouldn’t learn from it. Don’t let small instances in your life affect what is to come in the future. Yes, we all make mistakes, but if someone keeps meanly telling you that a small mistake you made as a middle-schooler has made you who you are today then laugh in their face and say “Ya you’re right… it has made me stronger than I was before.”
Let’s all learn to be like Timone and Pumba; live worry free, live carelessly, and live life like tomorrow is your last day on earth. Hakuna Matata.