Is every memory worth keeping? Pills to reduce mental trauma raise controversy ajc.com

IS every memory worth keeping?
Good question.
I have heard and seen and done and had done to me things I wish never happened.

I think we need our memories - even the awful ones. We are made sadder but wiser by our experiences.
Wiser still if we remember the lessons learned.

We survive.
We transcend.
We soften the bad stuff, airbrush it, repress it, even forget it.

So, to all the people in white labcoats in R&D, I'd rather manage my own memories, thanks all the same.

Here's one.
One Saturday, my Mom had taken us to the local museum. (I am the oldest of four, all born within four years!)
There is a theatre in the basement and a film was about to screen. It was about WWII, no rating posted, and someone told Mom she should see it. We were seated, and it was Kurt Vonnegut's "Slaughterhouse Five".
I was what, in grade four, five, six? And I was the oldest, and there we five were, (I'm counting Mom here), wide-eyed and unsuspecting, sealed in our seats by hip University Lit students and avante garde film people.

I wasn't ready for the things I saw on that screen, or the way they made me feel.
Or I didn't think I was.
I was very concious of losing some of my childhood, and it disturbed me.

Is every memory worth keeping? Possibly, if everything that happens is part of a plan.
And maybe it is, in "Amelie"or "Butterfly Effect" -like patterns that we cannot see.

We are reading "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren at Church, Housegroup and at home.

How close am I to living in my purpose?
How close are you, Dear Reader?