HOPE MONTH: DAY 4:
“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson
I loved this poem when I was new. It kept me in the day. I had a couple of things I would practice to remember “One day at a time.” This was one. The other was to tell myself each morning that I was going to die at midnight. It kept me from focusing on the crazy that Purple Screaming Monkeys wanted me to focus on.
It is a lovely poem, as are all of Mr. Emerson’s writings, to me. He was a highly spiritual man in a world where there was little tolerance for his views that leaned far away from traditional Christian values. Anyway, it is a great source of hope also. No matter how crappy some parts of my day had gone, I had to let them go and move into a new space with each day. Let’s talk about THAT. Since coming around here, I have heard a lot of people talk about what a terrible DAY or WEEK or MONTH of YEAR they had, based on a few things that did not go their way.
Really? Where is the focus there? Geez! In reality, we often have some discomfort for a few minutes, maybe an hour, mixed with some really good stuff. And, betting woman that I am, I challenge anyone to outweigh the blessings with the stuff that is uncomfortable or displeasing to us. We have the wrong focus, as usual. The BB calls us CHRONIC MALCONTENTS. Chronic…yep! We cannot be happy with anything for more than 10 seconds. It is the job of the 12 steps, when rigorously worked in our lives, to set us straight and turn that around.
So, if you constantly hear yourself whining and full of self-pity…get the f… over it! Your only job is to stay here long enough to realize there is no spiritual principle in self-pity. No one wants to hear it and it is SO ugly to the world at large. Get over it!
There is always hope that we can have an amazing life, when we do this work, until we get to the place where it begins to do us…I got that around 28 years into it. Some never do, because they have failed to consistently and on an ongoing basis, work the steps repeatedly, 4 through 9. The others are great, but those are the shit removers that keep me focused on what is truly great and beautiful in this world, which is, for me, the source of all happiness. Attitudes must be shifted into a life filled with walking, working, mindful gratitude. That is my ONLY hope today.
Dolphin Hug 