When I wrote that comment, I was really thinking of the famous quote by writer-philosopher George Santayana, which states "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
you're right, the future is in your hands, but the past still affects us. We choose whether to ignore it and end up repeating it or understand it so we don't repeat it.
As I mentioned, I never knew you, and I've only seen you around and heard you be mentioned, so IDK how much you've positively changed after everything.