There are many schools of thought to be heard on this subject. We have heard so many varying opinions on the possibility/impossibility of our past incarnations having direct bearing on the current that sometimes we get dizzy just trying to work it all out.
You have your fatalists who believe that this incarnation is exactly what it is and you cannot ever change it because it is what you earned before you ever got here and the best you can hope for is to improve your next incarnation by surviving this one.
Then you have those who will say that every day is what you chose to make it and that you reap what you sow on a daily basis. The past is only past and the future is where the answers to your future lies. So there is really nothing you could really learn from past lives.
I, personally, choose to believe the school of thought that teaches that, everything you are now and everything you ever were is trying to teach you something. You just have to figure out what the lesson is, and learn to profit spiritually from it. I believe that it is your duty to improve yourself, for yourself, and that if you don't the only one who will suffer for it is you. That being said, why on earth wouldn't you try every means to learn what you can about yourself, past incarnations included?
