Picture the scene for a moment: a perfect sunset. The sky is a mix of oranges, pinks, and purples, the air smells of salt, and there’s a cool breeze that makes you squint to savor the moment. But suddenly… boom! Your brain goes into “enjoyment emergency” mode.
You tell yourself you have to remember that magical moment forever. You wonder if you’re really enjoying it… You take a photo. And then another. And another… And so, without realizing it, you’ve turned a magical experience into a high-performance emotional mission.
The trap of existential collecting
We travel, but we spend more time adjusting the photo filter than looking at the scenery. We go to a concert, but we watch it through our phone screen. We tell ourselves, “We have to record this for the memory,” but the memory is ours, struggling with video mode…
It’s not even our fault—or at least not entirely. We live in an age of emotional efficiency: every moment should be unique, every experience should be unforgettable, and if we don’t capture an epic memory or a perfect photo to upload to social media, it seems like we’re doing it wrong. There’s a widespread tendency to turn beautiful experiences into stressful ones, as if we’re trying to replenish our lives.
However, do you know what happens when you try to bottle life like homemade jam? You lose the authentic flavor of the moment. It’s as if we wanted to encapsulate the essence of a perfect afternoon so we could open it any other time and feel the same way again. But life doesn’t work that way: when you try to put it in a jar, all you achieve is to lose its freshness.
I call this contemporary craze for archiving everything to make it memorable “memory hoarder syndrome.” Curiously, it leads to a “paradox of enjoyment” because the more we try to ensure the moment is perfect and treasure it in our memories, the more we turn it into a chore, almost an emotional project. When we try to treasure moments, they slip away, and we’re left holding an empty treasure.
In fact, remember those times when an unexpected conversation or a simple meal became the highlight of the day? It was because there was no pressure to make it memorable.
Life goes on, whether we like it or not, and the more we try to grasp it, the more it slips through our fingers, just like the mythical Danaides, condemned for eternity to fill leaky vessels with water.
Why do we feel the need to hoard moments?
The desire to accumulate memorable experiences is rooted in two widespread, yet little-recognized, types of fear:
- Fear of transience. We’re aware that time passes, and that terrifies us. We think about the future constantly, which often ruins our present. This attempt to “freeze” moments is a psychological ploy to symbolically deceive death.
- FOMO (Fear of missing out) is a general feeling of apprehension about the possibility that others may be having more rewarding experiences than our own. It’s the fear of missing out on some positive experience that drives us to want to be there and immortalize it.
Of course, the environment in which we operate also contributes its grain – or mountain – of sand to feeding this memory hoarder syndrome:
- Social pressure. On social media, we’re exposed to an avalanche of perfect moments, bright smiles, and intense experiences that seem to tell us our lives are boring in comparison. As a result, we want to accumulate memories so we feel like we’re also living life to the fullest.
- Hyper-optimization. In the culture of overexertion and self-exploitation, we believe that if we don’t “squeeze” every experience to the fullest, we’re failing. Obsessed with optimizing everything, including ourselves, we also want to take advantage of every second of the experience, even if that often means adding completely unnecessary pressure.
The dark side of memory hoarder syndrome
Trying to accumulate experiences has a significant emotional cost. It makes us hypercritical of our own experiences. Consequently, if they don’t live up to our high expectations, we feel like we’ve failed.
Furthermore, being so focused on preserving the moment for the future robs us of the ability to enjoy it in the present. It’s as if we’re so caught up in mental post-production that we forget about filming.
In fact, psychological studies indicate that when we are preoccupied with recording, photographing, or even narrating an experience, our brain records fewer details and memory becomes more diffuse.
This is because emotions often act as a powerful “glue” in memory. The amygdala, the emotional center par excellence, works in cooperation with other areas of the brain to consolidate experiences. However, when we worry about having the perfect angle or lighting, the intensity of positive emotions diminishes, which ultimately weakens the memory.
When we obsess over immortalizing moments, we fall into a kind of existential collecting and forget something fundamental: to live them. And if we don’t experience them, they won’t leave a mark on our brains. It’s as if, by focusing on preserving the moment, we sacrifice part of its essence. Ironic, isn’t it?
The wisdom of accepting that you cannot accumulate life
Often, the fear of not enjoying it enough or the pressure to make the most of an experience ends up fueling this memory-hoarding syndrome. Therefore, it would be good for us to change our mindset and stop collecting moments as if they were trading cards of a perfect life.
Accepting the fleeting nature of life is an act of emotional maturity. It’s recognizing that the important thing isn’t to archive everything, but to learn to flow with what comes. Instead of accumulating moments, we simply need to make sure we’re fully present when they happen and let go when they end.
It’s easier said than done. I know. But if we let our guard down a little more and let things happen without obsessing over the outcome, perhaps we could better capture its essence. That’s the difference between sitting and watching a sunset and trying to capture every nuance of color on camera. You live the first experience, you archive the second.
Perhaps that’s the secret to true happiness: letting go of the need for control, stopping bottling up time, and simply flowing with what life throws at us. In the end, the best moments don’t need to be immortalized, but lived.
References:
Lurie, R. & Westerman, D. L. (2021) Photo-Taking Impairs Memory on Perceptual and Conceptual Memory Tests. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition; 10(2): 289-297.
Tyng, C. M. et. Al. (2017) The Influences of Emotion on Learning and Memory. Front. Psychol.; 8: 10.3389.
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