Past Decisions Quotes & Sayings
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Top Past Decisions Quotes

I think President Obama is trying to deceive the public in pretending that he was not a part of Congress that has made some decisions in the past that got us to where we are today. — Sarah Palin

My telephone calls and meetings and decisions were now parts of a prescribed ritual aimed at making peace with the past; his calls, his meetings and his decisions were already the ones that would shape America's future. (On transfer of power to Gerald R Ford) — Richard M. Nixon

No one can make you dwell on the past.
Control your thoughts and actions! Make your own decisions! Just because someone keeps bringing up your past doesn't mean you have to accept it --- you are not obligated to accommodate their recollections of you. — Michelle Word Hollis

My biggest past mistakes have been when I made decisions out of ego rather than spirit. When I acted too quickly. When I wasn't contemplative or reflective or prayerful enough, and I ended up making what I would only later see to be unwise decisions. — Marianne Williamson

They say past performance is indicative of future behavior. If there was any truth to that statement, then I knew I had to be careful of the choices I made. My decisions were much more crucial now, as they affected the entire human population. One wrong move, and I could possibly wipe out the world. That was one thing I definitely didn't want on my shoulders. — Christine Gabriel

We're making decisions right now that shape our lives. Even indecision is a decision. What's going on today is a result of the choices we've made in the past. — Toni Sorenson

In our past lies our future. By our own hands and decisions we will be damned and we will be saved. Whatever you do, put forth your best effort even if all you're doing is chasing a never ending rainbow. You might never reach the end of it, but along the way you'll meet people who will mean the world to you and make me ... mories that will keep you warm on even the coldest nights — Sherrilyn Kenyon

People of vision gauge decisions on the future; the story of the past cannot be rewritten. — J. Oswald Sanders

What were you running away from, Emma?" he asked, seeing right through my answer. "Me," I answered honestly, avoiding his gaze. He waited for me to continue. I took a deep breath and said, "I don't want the past to define me anymore. I don't want what happened to me, or all the wrong decisions I've made to keep me from becoming someone better. I want to be better. — Rebecca Donovan

It is past eight. The hills before me are bathed in a gentle light that falls like sleep on weary eyes. Everything is soft and undefined. This is the hour Kham is most appealing to my sentimental self. There is no aggression in the air, just a drowsy stillness. This is the time of the day when people are immersed in the mundane actions of preparing for the night: gathering the yaks, feeding the dogs, rounding their cattle so the goats and the dris face each other and are in the right position to be milked in the morning. A time when the decisions made are whether people should take their clothes off or lie in them. A time when night is already evident in the way people light candles. — Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

At twenty your choices are almost unlimited. At fifty you're a prisoner of past decisions. At seventy you have no free will left at all. — Helen McCloy

These are the oldest memories on earth, the time codes carried in every chromosome and gene. Every step we've taken in our evolution is a milestone inscribed with organic memories. From the enzymes controlling the carbon-dioxide cycle, to the organization of the brachial plexus and the nerve pathways of the pyramid cells of the mid-brain. Each is a record of a thousand decisions taken in a chemical crisis. Just as psychoanalysis reconstructs the original traumatic situation in order to release the repressed material, so we are now being plunged back into the archaeopsychic past, uncovering the ancient taboos and drives that have been dormant for epochs. — J.G. Ballard

The whole enterprise of teaching managers is steeped in the ethic of data-driven analytical support. The problem is, the data is only available about the past. So the way we've taught managers to make decisions and consultants to analyze problems condemns them to taking action when it's too late. — Clayton M Christensen

Alice, winning means manipulation. It means taking people - people who may have helped you in the past, even people you care about - and using them without hesitation or regret. It means making decisions that would be viewed by any normal-thinking human being as cynical at best and dishonorable at worst — Elle Lothlorien

In the evolution of a town, neighborhood, or community, there comes a point when the decisions of the past, the conditions of the present, and the prospects for the future collide. — Jeff Smith

That's absolutely true, but one problem with the digital revolution, which may tie into what I said earlier, is that there can be a collapse of quality. You may not have liked the decisions made by publishers in the past, you may not have liked the decisions made by magazine editors or newspaper editors in the past. At least there was some quality control — William Monahan

We must also suffer the consequences of our past decisions. And for that, we must open our hearts to those in need. — Katharine Hayhoe

The human experience can almost be summed up in the observation that, whereas all decisions are of the past, all decisions are about the future. The image of the future, therefore, is the key to all choice-oriented behavior. The character and quality of the images of the future which prevail in a society is therefore the most important clue to its overall dynamics. — Kenneth E. Boulding

The fact that you made worse decisions in the past shouldn't be an excuse to make bad decisions in the present. — Sanhita Baruah

The role of a socially committed historian is to use history, not so much to documentthe past as to restore to the dehistoricized a sense of identity and possibility. Such 'medicinal' histories seek to re-establish the connections between peoples and their histories, to reveal the mechanisms of power, the steps by which their current condition of oppression was achieved through a series of decisions made by real people to dispossess them; but also to reveal the multiplicity, creativity and perseistence of resistance among the oppressed. — Aurora Levins Morales

Mitt Romney would move the Court even further right, putting landmark decisions like Roe v. Wade at risk. Some say Romney would repeat the past. I disagree - he'd be worse. — Chuck Schumer

Prejudices emerge from the disposition of the human mind to perceive and process information in categories. "Categories" is a nicer, more neutral word than "stereotypes," but it's the same thing. Cognitive psychologists consider stereotypes to be energy-saving devices that allow us to make efficient decisions on the basis of past experience; help us quickly process new information and retrieve memories; make sense of real differences between groups; and predict, often with considerable accuracy, how others will behave or how they think.24 We wisely rely on stereotypes and the quick information they give us to avoid danger, approach possible new friends, choose one school or job over another, or decide that that person across this crowded room will be the love of our lives. — Carol Tavris

Like so much of President Obama's decisions over the past six years, this is another photo-op with a compliant press that does not matter and will do little. — Erick Erickson

She has gone back to Brooklyn,' her mother would say. And, as the train rolled past Macmire Bridge on its way towards Wexford, Eilis imagined the years already when these words would come to mean less and less to the man who heard them and would come to mean more and more to herself. She almost smiled at the thought of it, then closed her eyes and tried to imagine nothing more. — Colm Toibin

Before Bush, I used to think that the choice of president really didn't matter, that the system kind of ran on its own- that whatever they said during the campaign, the system of checks and balances was really bigger than any individual. But that is what has been so chilling about seeing some of the decisions that have been made unilaterally over the past eight years. — Ron Howard

The consequences of today are determined by the actions of the
past. To change your future, alter your decisions today — Unknown

What have you done? (Apollymi)
Mulling mostly coupled with a shot or two of reminiscing and a drop of regretting a few past decisions. Some might even call it moping, but I'd kill anyone so stupid as to suggest that of me. (Stryker) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Selfishness, self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt. So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. — Alcoholics Anonymous

Paying more heed to the lessons of the past might teach us to be a little more cautious about some of the political decisions taken today. — Michael Morpurgo

When you're in love with two people, always choose the second. The fact that you are constantly thinking of the second person makes it obvious that the first will never fulfill you, unless the second person did not fulfill you either. At this point, you have to choose the third person because God is getting a little tired of your inattention and indecisiveness, and is planning on sending a fourth person into your life just to slap you around with the bible for not entering the promised land. — Shannon L. Alder

Recent brain scans have shed light on how the brain simulates the future. These simulation are done mainly in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the CEO of the brain, using memories of the past. On one hand, simulations of the future may produce outcomes that are desirable and pleasurable, in which case the pleasure centers of the brain light up (in the nucleus accumbens and the hypothalamus). On the other hand, these outcomes may also have a downside to them, so the orbitofrontal cortex kicks in to warn us of possible dancers. There is a struggle, then, between different parts of the brain concerning the future, which may have desirable and undesirable outcomes. Ultimately it is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex that mediates between these and makes the final decisions. (Some neurologists have pointed out that this struggle resembles, in a crude way, the dynamics between Freud's ego, id, and superego.) — Michio Kaku

What's past is past, nothing to do but smile through teeth that have been kicked in; only the future matters, the decisions you make from this moment on. — Ralph E. Vaughan

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshiping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Don't let fear dictate your decisions. Take a flying leap of faith. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Go all in with God. Go all out for God. — Mark Batterson

You have to make the decision to let go of the past if you want to move forward. — Bryant McGill

The very purpose of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution is to protect minority rights against majority voters. Every court decision that strikes down discriminatory legislation, including past Supreme Court decisions, affirming the fundamental rights to marry the person you love, overrules a majority decision. — David Boies

Beliefs lead us to make decisions based on our past experiences. Principles lead us to make decisions based on what we perceive to be just and righteous. — Philip West

Language, be it remembered, is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary-makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground. Its final decisions are made by the masses, people nearest the concrete, having most to do with actual land and sea. It permeates us all, the past as well as the present, and is the grandest triumph of the human intellect. - Walt Whitman — John Pollack

I've never regretted it. Questioned it? Sure. But never regretted."
"Is there a difference?" I ask.
"Absolutely. Regret is counterproductive. It's looking back on a past that you can't change. Questioning things as they occur can prevent regret in the future. I questioned a lot about my relationship with your father. People make spontaneous decisions based off of their hearts all the time. There's so much more to relationships than just love. — Colleen Hoover

My father taught me that you can you read a hundred books on wisdom and write a hundred books on wisdom, but unless you apply what you learned then its only words on a page. Life is not lived with intentions, but action. — Shannon L. Alder

In the process of forgiveness, you can only control your own actions and decisions. — Stephen Richards

My feelings for Maxx were causing me to make decisions I never would have made in the past. I was forgetting about everything that had mattered to me, potentially throwing it all away to save a boy I was pretty sure didn't want to be saved.
Love made us stupid.
Love made us blind.
Love could incapacitate us and leave us powerless.
And love could also make everything better.
I couldn't let myself think anything less. — A Meredith Walters

He can't change the decisions he made in the past any more than you or I could ours. — V.R. Avent

It's a memoir of various events in my own life, but it's also a teaching book: along the way I explain the writing decisions I made. They are the same decisions that confront every writer going in search of his or her past: matters of selection, reduction, organization and tone. — William Zinsser

Politicians and bureaucrats are substituting their uninformed, largely political decisions for those of the marketplace. Their past miscalculations demonstrate that they do not and cannot possess the information, knowledge, means, and discipline to manage the economy. — Mark Levin

Often times, a person will think they know you by piecing together tiny facts and arranging those pieces into a puzzle that makes sense to them. If we don't know ourselves very well, we'll mistakenly believe them, and drift toward where they tell us to swim, only to drown in our own confusion.
Here's the truth: it's important to take the necessary steps to find out who you are. Because you hold endless depths below the surface of a few facts and pieces and past decisions. You aren't only the ripples others can see. You are made of oceans. — Victoria Erickson

He gave a talk in which he argued that the way they measured risk was completely idiotic. They measured risk by volatility: how much a stock or bond happened to have jumped around in the past few years. Real risk was not volatility; real risk was stupid investment decisions. — Michael Lewis

I do not believe, given her past decisions and comments on the reasons to go to war in Iraq, that Dr. Rice will be able to represent the United States without a predetermined bias from the war. — Daniel Akaka

I think, you know, for someone who does play, let's say, old music or, you know, Baroque music or Renaissance music - and you know, and I do play a lot of that, obviously - engaging with new composers, engaging with young composers, is really exciting because it makes me look at people of the past in a very different way that they are also living, that there was a lot of subjectivity in the decisions that they were making. — Mahan Esfahani

When you do what's important now for you, you create a past that leaves you ready to handle the present. By default, the future is taking care of itself as you make decisions that are acceptable to you no matter what happens tomorrow. — John Kuypers

Could it be that we made arbitrary decisions at some point in the past (like the goslings that adopted Lorenz as their parent) and have built our lives on them ever since, assuming that the original decisions were wise? — Dan Ariely

It's not what's happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather, it's your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you're going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny ... — Tony Robbins

I like to think I would not have approved those methods in the past, but I do not fault those who made the decisions at that time, and I will absolutely defend those who carried out the interrogations within the orders they were given. — Dennis C. Blair

In Iroquois society, leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the past and consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people. — Wilma Mankiller

If we are not happy with where our past decisions have led us, then the place to start is with our current thinking process. — Jim Rohn

what I remember most of all is that I was happy - I no longer feared the school bell at the end of the day, I knew where I'd be living the next month, and no one's romantic decisions affected my life. And out of that happiness came so many of the opportunities I've had for the past twelve years. — J.D. Vance

Such decisions will be far reaching and difficult. But you never lacked courage in the past. Your courage is now needed for the future. — Gerry Adams

Transformation occurs when existing solutions, assumed truths and past decisions are exposed as unrealistic and self-defeating. — Peter Shepherd

A fascinating challenge facing today's environmental movement is how to best approach the reversal of past decisions that altered once-pristine environmental spaces for the sake of urgent man-made needs. — Matt Gonzalez

I was only able to get over my past when I decided I was going to! As I've discovered, that's how everything starts. I decided to get out of bed this morning. I decided to get ready for work (D'oh! Another early morning). Everything I did today was because I made a decision. Although we can't set ourselves free, getting up and making a decision to move on from our past is a step in the right direction. We can't do God's part, and He won't do our part. He can't make that decision for you, because only you can. But once you have made that decision, He can help you with the rest. — Corallie Buchanan

Regrets are like molecules. We're all made up of a lot of them. They are elemental. Building blocks. The foundations of memory. You can dawdle in the past, allow it to shadow you, or you can walk forward into the light of tomorrow.But you can't altogether disregard what has already been- byways chosen, detours taken. The misbegotten decisions you can never reverse, but only by sorting through them can you find where you took the wrong turns and gain proper perspective. Time is a parabolic lens, bringing hindsight into focus. — Ellen Hopkins

I cannot change the decisions that I have made in the past, but I can learn from them and make the most of the life that I am living now. — Christa Cervone

Forgiving others simply means that you refuse to be a prisoner of a past that you can't change, and shackled to decisions that you didn't make. — Craig D. Lounsbrough

Berg, while the go-to guy for decisions for past campaigns, engaged in frequent and successful battles against sobriety. — Sally Courtnix

No, cool is fine," he said. "Yes, it's a cool place. It was much cooler seven years ago, and it was actually cool ten years ago, before I even got to the city. You see, what those kids over there" - he pointed at the empty booth - "don't realize is that cool is always past tense. The people who lived it, who set the standards they emulate, there was no cool for them. There was just the present tense: there were bills, friendships, messy fucking, fucking boredom, a million trite decisions on how to pass the time. Self-awareness destroys it. You call something cool and you brand it. Then - poof - it's gone. It's just nostalgia. — Stephanie Danler

Decisions and events from the past make us what we are today. Moving on doesn't mean getting rid of the past- but instead, accepting it. — Sadaf Zulfikar

This is the time to make those hard decisions and let things go. Ask yourself, "Is this item part of my past or my future?" If it's sentimental, take a picture and let it go! Save the memory in a picture, but not on your shelf. — Marcia Ramsland

I am convinced that knowledge is power - to overcome the past, to change our own situations, to fight new obstacles, to make better decisions. — Ben Carson

History is important because it teaches us about the past. And bylearning about the past, you come to understand the present, so that you may make educated decisions about the future. — Richelle Mead

No, Sully'd decided long ago to abstain from all but the most general forms of regret. He allowed himself the vague wish that things had turned out differently, without blaming himself that they hadn't, any more than he'd blamed himself when his 1-2-3 triple never ran like it should at least once. It didn't pay to second-guess every one of life's decisions, to pretend to wisdom about the past from the safety of the present, the way so many people did when they got older. — Richard Russo

The nervous system and the automatic machine are fundamentally alike in that they are devices, which make decisions on the basis of decisions they made in the past. — Norbert Wiener

People change as they get older ... grow wiser, make better decisions ... i am very old,Laurel. Anyone who lives as long as I have can't help but collect regrets along the way ... things they did in the past ... things they wish they'd done differently. — Kate Morton

Self-reflection enables every person to alter the trajectory of their personal storyline by reviewing a series of episodic occurrences and making value judgments regarding the past. How we perceive our history colors the present, our deeds of today script the future outcome of individual persons, and the outcome of many people making conscious decisions using their cognitive processes including the ability to remember and share memories influences the direction of human development and the progress of society. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The past is a rich resource on which we can draw in order to make decisions for the future, but it does not dictate our choices. We should look back at the past and select what is good, and leave behind what is bad. — Nelson Mandela

Fifty years ago, historians advised politicians and policy-makers. They helped chart the future of nations by helping leaders learn from past mistakes in history. But then something changed, and we began making decisions based on economic principles rather than historical ones. The results were catastrophic. — Annalee Newitz

And it is clear to Evan, now: the difference between what is and what has been done; the present and the past. He sees that what he does and who he is isn't based on the past unless he wants it to be ... No. That is the past, which has been seen differently through many different eyes and has become hazy and unclear, like a pond when stirred with a stick. Only the present moment is clear and free from prejudice. — Garth Stein

With all of those events, I didn't realize I was seeing something amazing for the first and last time. And I'm saying that those things, those random, crazy surprises that have nothing to do with life decisions or your past or your future, might be worth sticking around for. — Anne Frasier

If you sat with a pencil and jotted down all the decisions you've taken in the past week, or, if you could, over your lifetime, you would realize that almost all of them have had asymmetric payoff, with one side carrying a larger consequence than the other. You decide principally based on fragility, not probability. Or to rephrase, You decide principally based on fragility, not so much on True/False. — Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The human condition can almost be summed up in the observation that, whereas all experiences are of the past, all decisions are about the future. It is the great task of human knowledge to bridge this gap and to find those patterns in the past which can be projected into the future as realistic images. — Kenneth E. Boulding

The experiencing self does not have a voice. The remembering self is sometimes wrong, but it is the one that keeps score and governs what we learn from living, and it is the one that makes decisions. What we learn from the past is to maximize the qualities of our future memories, not necessarily of our future experience. This is the tyranny of the remembering self. — Daniel Kahneman

For too long, decisions have been taken behind closed doors - tablets of stone have simply been past down to people without bothering to involve people, listen to their views or give them information about what we are doing and why. — Peter Mandelson

Don't be so harsh on yourself because of your bad decisions you've made in the past and don't let them hinder your life progress. Try to forgive yourself and accept it as a learning curve for you and thank God you have managed to turn things .around. — Euginia Herlihy

The past can leave us in an indelible bitterness. The past can erode our present joy. The past can chain our present in the cage of the past. The past can make our future look blurry. Not until we learn the real lessons of the past and dare to go for growth, we shall always live in the past though we may have today to think for a change, and we shall never forgo the past. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Moving forward is not based upon your past; your future is exclusively determined by the decisions you make now, in this moment. — Mike Michalowicz

The past shouldn't be forgotten. It should be used as a guide for future situations and not used as a reason to avoid making difficult decisions. There was always a choice. — Maria V. Snyder

Looking back on their past decisions about whether to purchase experiences, 83 percent of people sided with Mark Twain, reporting that their biggest single regret was one of inaction, of passing up the chance to buy an experience when the opportunity came along. — Elizabeth Dunn

The decisions of our past are the architects of our present. — Dan Brown

That's one benefit of travelling to your own future, and making the trip part of your past. — James A. Owen

I'm sick of them. I never want to see them again. Except Aros; he smells nice. And Rome; because he's so strong I'm pretty sure not even Rau can get past him. I don't need the others. Except Siret. I'm pretty sure he hates me, but he's really good at catching me like just before I face-plant into something. But the others, I don't need them. Not at all." I paused, my brow furrowing, my mouth pursing, and then I quickly blurted, "Except Coen and Yael. Coen is really good at making decisions, and if I leave out Yael he'll probably hunt me down and haunt me-"
"That's all of them," Emmy interrupted smoothly. — Jaymin Eve

We try to press against the boundaries of what we are allowed, walk a step past the edge. Our records will be scrutinized by Congress one day and decisions on whether to enlarge our jurisdiction will be made. — Louise Erdrich

A bishop friend who is known for his advocacy of controversial positions says his rule of thumb when uncertain about which course to choose is "Go with the future." Had he lived in Germany in 1932 and followed that rule of thumb he would have been a spirited supporter of Adolf Hitler. There is no "future" to guide our present decisions. There are only possible futures that we can strive to advance or resist. More precisely, there is no "future" until it happens, and then it is fleetingly the present on its way to becoming the past. Yet we persist in trying to dismiss proposals labeled as conservative because, we confidently proclaim, they are not of the future but of the past ... The commandments of the future are easier, of course, because we can make them up to our liking. — Richard John Neuhaus

Many people look at their past and bemoan their mistakes. Those errors in judgment, behavior, hurting others, and the wrong decisions may be what consumes them now. It does not have to be that way, for recovering from a traumatic situation is all a matter of how we think about what happened. It is not so much about what happened to us as what we make of the circumstance. — David W. Earle

Create a vision and never let the environment, other people's beliefs, or the limits of what has been done in the past shape your decisions. Ignore conventional wisdom. — Lionel Robbins, Baron Robbins

As soon as I decided I'd have to dig down still deeper to uncover the root of my listless withdrawal from life, I became aware of some interference from the past distracting and confusing my thoughts, causing me a sensation that was at the same time oppressive, expectant and empty. In these somewhat contradictory feelings, I came to recognize my childish sense of having run down like a clock that needed someone to wind it before it could go again; and saw that I was now no less helpless than in those far-off days when I waited for somebody to take me by the hand and tell me what to do. On my own initiative I could do nothing, take no responsibility, make no decisions only watch my existence unroll. — Anna Kavan

...one good decision can totally change the trajectory of our lives. And that one good decision will lead to better decisions. But it starts by making the right decision when no one is looking.
There is a past cause and future effect to every decision that goes way beyond what is discernible in the here and now. Decisions have long and often complex genealogies. And every decision is a genesis moment that has the potential to radically alter not just our destiny but the course of human history as well. — Mark Batterson

The reason so many believers are struggling is that we have voted in the past asking God to bless our plans rather than casting our votes based on seeking His agenda. We want God to sign off on our decisions rather than us following His. — Tony Evans

The big idea we start with is: "How is the genome interpreted, and how are stable decisions that affect gene expression inherited from one cell to the next?" This is one of the most competitive areas of molecular biology at the moment, and the students are reading papers that in some instances were published this past year. As a consequence, one of the most common answers I have to give to their questions is, "We just don't know." — Shirley M. Tilghman

Working together during the past three years, we have confounded the skeptics and the cynics. We've shown that here in Virginia, Democrats and Republicans can come together, put politics aside, and make tough decisions when times demand it. — Mark Warner

There are two decisions you need to make after you have accepted Jesus into your life. One: You need to make the decision to get over your past. You will not grow unless you make a conscious decision to get over your past. Two: Once you have made that decision, you need to trust God to help you get over your past ...
You didn't just automatically become a Christian, did you? You weren't made a Christian by just going to church. Just like you are not made a car by sitting in a garage all day! You have to make a decision. — Corallie Buchanan

Neuroscientists rarely have to grapple with the issue of presentism versus existentialism. But in practice, neuroscientists are implicitly presentists. They view the past, present, and future as fundamentally distinct, as the brain makes decisions in the present, based on the memories of the past, to enhance our well being in the future. But despite its intuitive appeal, presentism is the underdog theory in physics and philosophy. — Dean Buonomano