It’s not promised. Tomorrow.
That doesn’t mean one should make no plans for tomorrow . . . or next week . . . or next year. Life is an ongoing process, and decisions are made in the hope that they can be realized tomorrow . . . or next week . . . or next year. But there is a danger: focusing on the morrow to the point where the present day gets shortchanged . . . even lost in the shuffle.
The trick is to plan for the future as if it will be realized, but without one’s mindset swindling the value out of today.
Some people are so desperately anxious for retirement that they spend decades with their eyes and emotions chiefly focused of their sixty-fifth birthday. Anxiety for the “good life” of not having to work for a living can rob people of a zest for life while the non-working years are yet ages away.
It also happens in the religious sphere. I’ve had people tell me they are actually anxious for death so that they can get to heaven where everybody will have a never-ending good time. Folks with this mindset often disdain our earthly sojourn as next-to-worthless in light of their concept of an anticipated joyful eternity. It seems to me that this would result in a pretty drab, meaningless existence in the here and now.
The need to look ahead – more or less, depending on the situation – notwithstanding, there is always something vital close at hand. It’s called the next twenty-four hours. Prudent foresight is a good thing, but avoiding the day, decrying the present, or cheating oneself (and/or others) out of current joy is, put simply, a waste. It is a devaluation of life itself.
The point: give each day its due . . . or let each day give you its due.
In thirty-eight days I head with my wife for a vacation in the Southwest. I’m really looking forward to the drive down and back, and to family time there. But I also have thirty-eight days before leaving to suck the marrow out of life. It’s a fact that tomorrow, or the upcoming trip south, might or might not come. So I seek value and joy and peace and meaning in this very day.
