There are countless reasons for studying history. People always say, “History is important so that we do not repeat the mistakes of our past,” but there is much to history than just learning from our mistakes. As The History Guide talks about, it comes down to history defines your identity. It is who you are because everything you do, everything you learn, and everything you want to be has to do with something you experienced in the past.
If you like sports it’s probably because you’ve someone do them and you saw something in them that you wanted to experience.One reason for studying history, in which not many believe but I see it as a true event, is because at times one can see what the future may be like. It sort of predicts what that near future may be like when the result of a situation is short term. For example, knowing that when someone wins the lottery is going to have new houses, cars, expensive clothes, and maybe even protection comes from you knowing your history about what happens when someone wins the lottery. It may seem like an obvious occurrence but because of history one is able to predict what that person or family may do when they win the lottery. Of course history won’t tell what the future may hold because not every situation has the exact same circumstances at the exact same place in the exact same time, but at least one can make a pretty good assumption at what may happen next.
Another one it is because history also defines your identity. Everyone and everything cannot help but have a past. We all have origins we come from that sort of guide us to the people we become. For instance, I am of Hispanic origin, therefore I will be used to Quinceanera parties, eating tacos, etc. but someone from a different culture won’t have the slightest idea of what that even is.
It is a beautiful thing to learn where your roots come from and see what life your ancestors went through, whether they experienced the a bad era like the 1920’s when the market crashed and poverty swarmed the nation, or any era that marked a turning point in the nation and the world. One can look back and think, “Wow! My family lived through those times! Perhaps I can be a part of history as well.”At least that’s the way I see it. Everyone looks to always make a change or a difference in the world, and I know I want to. So, if you look at history, everything that IS history, it is because it mattered somewhere to someone what occurred at the time. Chances are that whatever did happen was something that changed the world.
By studying history we can look at what those people did to stun the world so greatly that their name, their identity, and their legacy may be remembered for the future to look back and see the way they changed the world. That is why I believe we need to study history, because those differences in the world are history, whether good or bad, they made a difference in our world.
