"And the beat goes on....................."
Good intentions, gone awry again. Arrrgghhh, and I meant well too.
One of the fundamental questions seems to now be: "Where did the time go?" Mondays always start out with great expectations, steely resolve and high hopes. One never anticipates the big and little life interruptions that give lie to our plans. It's hard to know when we will get sick, or one or more of the kids will have a crisis, or when work will throw us an unanticipated curve or when we will simply sink back into a funk we thought we had escaped. The only thing predictable is that things will inevitably and invariably happen to throw us off our game. And yet, we almost never see it coming, and so we roll along fully believing our lists are realistic and that we will get done what we planned to get done. We so want to believe that we are the masters of our own fate.
Ha.
We all have our excuses, some legitimate some fake. We all have have good reasons why we end up behind sometimes. We are all familiar with the treachery of time and how it messes with us.
Today is always filled with more stuff to do than there is time for. Today is busy, always busy. Deadlines, things on the list, things not on the list that magically and mysteriously come from nowhere to end up on the list. Today clocks always run fast. What started out as a whole day, quickly goes and the day is over. Today there are errands, and meetings, appointments, progress to be made and things to wrap up. Today is impossibly jammed. Today's list is overloaded with yesterday's list of things for which there simply wasn't time. Today can be frustrating, create hopelessness and leave one unsatisfied. Some todays may be milestones to be celebrated because everything goes right. But that's unusual. More often, today just comes and goes and almost nothing changes. Good intentions aside, today has a nasty habit of just slipping away almost unnoticed. Today is a chameleon and you never know what will happen. Today always looks good from yesterday's perspective, but when it arrives it turns out to have been a deceiver, looking frequently nothing like it looked from afar.
But Tomorrow is different. Tomorrow there is always hope to get a lot of important stuff accomplished. Tomorrow is always full of possibilities and promise. Tomorrow is a perennial fresh start, an open book, a chance for redemption. Tomorrow is about the future, about what might be, about hope and possibility.
They say today is all that is important. Live for today. Today is the only reality. Yesterday is gone and tomorrow isn't here yet. Only today matters. We are admonished to live today; to make the most of it before it is gone; we are advised to live today like there will be no tomorrow.
But that's simply not the reality. Even if the stash of tomorrows isn't endless, one operates on the assumption that tomorrow will always get here. Most of us live in tomorrow, not today. Tomorrow is where are plans are, our dreams and hopes and ideas that germinate and flesh out. Tomorrow is where the work gets done and things change. There are no mistakes yet in tomorrow, no regrets, no recriminations. Tomorrow promises accomplishment and achievement. Tomorrow things can be, will be, different. Tomorrow the wrongs of the world can be righted. Tomorrow we shall be our better selves. Tomorrow we will finish what we started, cross things off the To Do list. Tomorrow Sisyphus will roll the rock all the way to the top. Tomorrow mountains will be climbed and oceans crossed. Tomorrow is always the seductress, tempting us with what might be, luring us to where we might overcome the weaknesses of today. Today is a fraud. It never lives up to its promise. Tomorrow tempts us. Tomorrow is our friend, today could care less about us.
As Scarlett O'Hara said with determination and hope in Gone With the Wind: "Tomorrow is another day". Tomorrow is about vision and purpose. About what might be and dealing with what went wrong today and yesterday. Tomorrow can be the unknown, sometimes scary, sometimes foolish in appearance, and tomorrow can be deceptive and falsely lull us into its seeming security. But there is something enormously comforting about tomorrow and what might be.
Time has no beginning, no end. It always exists in the moment, and that is its' limitation for us, for the moment is too ephemeral, too nebulous, too fragile -- too fraught with breakage; too hard to get a handle on, and much too difficult to appreciate while in it. Tomorrow is of more substance, tomorrow is more real, tomorrow holds greater promise for accomplishment and renewal. Tomorrow can be viewed dispassionately from afar, from every angle. Perfection is never possible today, but perfection lives boldly in the imagination of tomorrow. Tomorrow brooks no escape, but it suffers the fools of today gladly.
So if your today was less satisfying than it might have been when it was but yesterday's tomorrow, don't fret. If today was disappointing and didn't turn out like it was suppose to, don't be too hard on yourself. If you didn't get anywhere near done what you absolutely, positively had to get done, it's ok, because that's the way it is, like it or not. Tomorrow will be here soon enough and you can have another chance. Tomorrow is all about chances, and changes.
I plan on getting stuff done tomorrow.
As the song goes in Annie: "Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. I love ya tomorrow. Tomorrow's just a day away." There is no better thing to wish for than an endless stream of tomorrows, even if you know that's probably a pipe dream.
Have a great today and an even better tomorrow.
Don't Quit
Barry
