No Day But Today

In September, I'll have gotten used to my new job and have time to blog again.

In September, this oppressive heat will finally break, college football season will return, my brother will finish his prescribed chemotherapy, and the house we moved out of five years ago will be fully renovated and finally back on the market. Maybe it will even sell. 

This September, one of my best friends comes to visit. Liz and I might be able to slip down to the beach one weekend.  That big thing at work that's been weighing over me will be done.  I won't have to bother with cutting our grass, which is the bane of my existence. 

This fall, life looks pretty good. There's only one problem.

I can't live in the fall. I live in right now. 

You might find yourself in a similar situation.  No matter how much brighter the future might look, or how dismal things might seem now, at the moment, the present is the only choice you have.

Sometimes it's tempting to close our eyes and hope time passes quickly.  The hope of a better tomorrow is sometimes all we seem to have to encourage us anyway. 

But if we were meant to live in tomorrow, it would be here already.  The fact that it isn't, shows that there is still something valuable we are to gain from today, even if it feels useless or painful.  Even if you don't believe that, you might still surprise yourself with how much better life seems if you pretend to.  And when that tomorrow gets here, you'll be better off for having engaged with life than having hid from it. 

The future seems like a better time to be excited about life for the same reason it seems a better time to clean your garage: everything seems easier if you don't have to do it now.  But, rest assured, tomorrow will have problems of its own, ones we probably can't even foresee. 

Don't get me wrong. There probably are better times ahead.  The weekend, for example.  But the promise of a better future should never serve as an excuse to have an unfullfilling now. 

So if you're excited about September, plan something meaningful this weekend. Later tonight, call a friend you've been meaning to catch up with. Check out that restaurant that looks fun and might someday become a favorite. Read a book.  Write a blog.  Do something nice for someone.  Make someone else happy.

It will make the time go by a lot faster until tomorrow gets here.  After all, you might not have time for that kind of fulfillment when tomorrow finally arrives.

Holidays Should Never Fall on a Wednesday

If this blog accomplishes nothing else (and so far, it hasn't), I hope it raises awareness about my movement to push all holidays away from Mondays to some better day.  Wednesdays, though, are even worse.  Here's my column from last year about why major holidays should never fall on the day before the workweek resumes.

Enjoy.

http://andrewsmithsthoughts.blogspot.com/2011/09/why-holidays-should-never-fall-on.html