Every night before going to bed I write a journal entry about the happenings of my day. I was writing my typical journal when I saw the blank page that would be filled with tomorrow’s activities. I thought to myself, “I could write down exactly what I plan on doing tomorrow right now and commit to doing it.” Get up at X time, make Y thing for breakfast, do Z activity for a specific period of time. I could map out the perfect day to be the most full version of myself, but I don’t.
Humans aren’t robots. We could plan our day down to the second and execute it just like lines of code written for a computer program. Life doesn’t work that way. Yes, I could plan to call my family or friends at 3:15pm on Tuesday and I’ll call them at that specific moment. I can control giving them a call then, but what happens if they don’t pick up? I was scheduled to talk to family and friends from 3:15 to 3:45, so now what?
The thought of me having the ability to plan out my next day led me to think, “shouldn’t I be able to do that with my career and the remainder of my life?” I think it’s very important to be intentional with the choices you are making because your life is the consequence of the decisions from your past. The decisions I made yesterday will have a varying degree of impact on my life tomorrow. Using cheddar vs havarti cheese on my sandwich won’t affect my day tomorrow, but buying plane tickets to Istanbul will.
Life throws us externalities that get in the way. Everyone knows this. The further you try to plan your activities into the future, the more blurry it gets. How am I supposed to know what’s a realistic day for me on June 1st, 2053? I have a good idea of what’s in my control for tomorrow or even a week from today, but things come up that are out of my control.
I should have an idea of where I want to take my life and make decisions to lead myself there, but the plan won’t be perfect. Things will come up and that’s all part of the plan. I need to be flexible. Just because I can’t predict where I will be 30 years into the future doesn’t mean I shouldn’t make decisions now that will put me in the position of where I think I want to be 30 years from today. I know that 30 years in the future I want to end my day with a smile on my face and being around people I love. Those are constants that won’t change.
This also reaffirms the idea that we should all try to enjoy the present. The present is the only thing we can guarantee. What has happened in the past can’t change, but we can set ourselves up for where we want to be in the future. The actions we take in the present should be a healthy mix of enjoying the moment while trying to put ourselves in a better position for the next day. We can’t predict the externalities that will happen tomorrow, so we should do our absolute best to enjoy today.
Peace and Love.
Begin at once to live, and count each separate day as a separate life..