The Magic Day

Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are. -- Nkosi Johnson, Twelve-year-old Zulu boy, living with AIDS

In order to make someone else happy or convince myself that someday my life would, as if by magic, get better, I have put my life on hold.
I know now that it didn't work.

The magic day never came, and I was waiting and hoping for happiness that was never going to come.
I am worthy of being happy, of having people love me the way I want to be loved, and of making my own choices about what happens to me.

It's my life. Today I take it back.

Time to Break Free by Judith R. Smith

Living in the Present

One day at a time,

This is enough.

Do not look back and grieve over the past.

For it is gone. . .

And do not be troubled about the future.

For it has not yet come.

Live in the present, and make it so beautiful.

That it will be worth remembering.

Today

There is not anything one should not be ready to tolerate, and there is nobody whom one should not forgive.
Never doubt those whom you trust; never hate those whom you love; never cast down those whom you once raise in your estimation.
Wish to make friends with everyone you meet; make an effort to gain the friendship of those you find difficult ... No one is either higher or lower than oneself.
In all sources that fulfill one's need, one may see one source, God, the only source; and in admiring and in bowing before and in loving anyone, one may consider one is doing it to God.
In sorrow one may look to God, and in joy one may thank Him.
One does not bemoan the past, nor worry about the future; one tries only to make the best of today.
One should know no failure, for even in a fall there is a stepping-stone to rise.
In Fitzgerald's translation of Omar Khayyam:

'O my Beloved, fill the cup that clears today of past regrets and future fears. Why, tomorrow I may be myself, with yesterday's sev'n thousand years!'

By this he means:
Make the best of this moment; it is now that you can clearly see eternity, if you live in this moment. But if you keep the world of the past or the world of the future before you, you do not live in eternity but in a limited world.
In other words, live neither in the past nor in the future, but in eternity.
It is now that we should try to discover that happiness which is to be found in the freedom of the soul. -- Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Do not bemoan the past,
do not worry about the future,
but try to make the best of today.

The Field Of Life

Every moment has its special message.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan

Every step in evolution makes life more valuable.
The more evolved you are, the more priceless is every moment; it becomes an opportunity for you to do good to others, to serve others, to give love to others, to be gentle to others, to give your sympathy to souls who are longing and hungering for it.
Life is miserable when a person is absorbed in himself; as soon as he forgets himself he is happy.
The more he thinks of himself, his own affairs, work and interests, the less he knows the meaning of life.
If we only understood that every moment in life, every day, every month, and every year, has its particular blessing; if we only knew life's opportunity! But the greatest opportunity that one can realize in life is to accomplish that purpose for which man was sent on earth.
And if he has lost that opportunity, then whatever he may have accomplished in the world, whether he has gathered wealth, possesses much property, or has made a great name for himself, he will not be satisfied.
Once man's eyes are opened and he begins to look at the world, he will find there is a greater opportunity than he had ever thought before.
Man is as poor as he is, as limited as he is, as troubled as he is; yet there is nothing in this world which could not be accomplished by man if he only knew what thought can do.
It is ignorance which keeps him from what he ought to accomplish. Man should know how to operate his thought, how to accomplish certain things, how to focus his mind on the object that should be accomplished.
If he does not know then he has not made use of his mind but has lived like a machine. If man knew the power of feeling, and realized that the power of feeling can reach anywhere and penetrate anything, he could achieve whatever he might wish. . . . Every man is a captive in some form or other; his life is limited in some form or other; but one could get above this limitation by realizing the latent power and inspiration of the soul.
Kabir, the great poet of India says, 'Life is a field and you are born to cultivate it. And if you know how to cultivate this field you can produce anything you like. All the need of your life can be produced in this field. All that your soul yearns after and all you need is to be got from the field, if you know how to cultivate it and how to reap the fruit.'
But if this opportunity is only studied in order to make the best of life by taking all that one can take and by being more comfortable, that is not satisfying.
We must enrich ourselves with thought, with that happiness which is spiritual happiness, with that peace which belongs to our soul, with that liberty, that freedom, for which our soul longs; and attain to that higher knowledge which breaks all the fetters of life and raises our consciousness to look at life from a different point of view.
Once a person has realized this opportunity he has fulfilled the purpose of Life.

Commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

Today

I must walk into darkness to find the light and walk into fear to find peace.
Fear not for the future, weep not for the past.
My thoughts create my future.
What I will be tomorrow is determined by what I think today.

Living or Waiting?

I'll live today in the present, handling every problem as well as I can and enjoying every experience that comes to me.

JFT = Just For Today.

Everyone has problems.

Getting drunk won't solve them.

"Twenty-four hours a day."

Today is the day.

Doing our best, living each day to the fullest is the art of living.

Yesterday is gone, and we don't know whether we will be here tomorrow.

If we do a good job of living today, and if tomorrow comes for us, then the chances are we will do a good job when it arrives -- so why worry about it?

Alcoholics Anonymous, p. 357

 

What have I been given today?

Am I willing to reach out and grasp it?

 

~~~ @@ ~~~

 

Today

I realize that all I'm guaranteed in life is today.

The poorest person has no less and the wealthiest has no more -- each of us has but one day.

What we do with it is our own business; how we use it is up to us individually.

Experience, Strength and Hope,  p. 392

 

Every day is a gift. 
That is why we call it the present.

 

ODAAT = One Day At A Time.

 

~~~ @@ ~~~

My Time

There are many fine things
which you mean to do some day,
under what you think will be
more favorable circumstances.

But the only time that is yours
is the present.

Grenville Kleiser

ശിപ്വ്രെച്കെദ് ഇന്‍ സൌത്ത് കാരോളിന

Today's Shadow

Today was like a shadow.

It lurked behind me.

It's now gone forever.

Why is it that time is such
a difficult thing to befriend?

Mary Casey

Not Fear Tomorrow

St.Philip Neri prayed,

"Let me get through today,

and I shall not fear tomorrow."

The Daffodil Principle

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over."
I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead.
"I will come next Tuesday", I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy.
Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there.
When I finally walked into Carolyn's house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children.
I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren.

"Forget the daffodils, Carolyn!
The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!"
My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother."

"Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her.
"But first we're going to see the daffodils. It's just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this."
"Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around."
"It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience."

After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church.
On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, "Daffodil Garden."
We got out of the car, each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path.
Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped.
Before me lay the most glorious sight.

It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes.
The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow.
Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue.
There were five acres of flowers.

"Who did this?" I asked Carolyn.
"Just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home."
Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory.
We walked up to the house.
On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking", was the headline.
The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read.
The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain."
The third answer was, "Began in 1958."

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience.
I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop.
Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived .
One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration.

That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time --often just one baby-step at time -- and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time.
When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things.
We can change the world . . .

"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way.
"Start tomorrow," she said.

She was right.
It's so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays.

The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, "How can I put this to use today?"
Use the Daffodil Principle. Stop waiting . . . .

Until your car or home is paid off
Until you get a new car or home
Until your kids leave the house
Until you go back to school
Until you finish school
Until you clean the house
Until you organize the garage
Until you clean off your desk
Until you lose 10 lbs.
Until you gain 10 lbs.
Until you get married
Until you get a divorce
Until you have kids
Until the kids go to school
Until you retire
Until summer
Until spring
Until winter
Until fall
Until you die . . .

There is no better time than right now to be happy.

Happiness is a journey, not a destination.

So work like you don't need money.

Love like you've never been hurt ...

and Dance like no one's watching.

Just Today

Happiness keeps you Sweet,

Trials keep you Strong,

Sorrows keep you Human,

Failures keep you Humble,

Success keeps you Glowing,

But Only God Keeps You Going!

Guilt

Guilt is really the reverse side of the coin of pride.

~~~@@~~~@@~~~

Guilt is in the past;

worry is the future.
Both are manifestations of ego.

~~~@@~~~@@~~~

A Sparse Diet Of Promises

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back.
From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed?
Does the word "refrigeration" mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, "How about going to lunch in a half hour?"
She would gas up and stammer, "I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, it looks like rain."
And my personal favorite: "It's Monday."
She died a few years ago.
We never did have lunch together.

Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.
We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get the kid toilet-trained.
We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet.
We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older.
The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer.
One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of "I'm going to," "I plan on," and "Someday, when things are settled down a bit."

When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips.
She keeps an open mind on new ideas.
Her enthusiasm for life is contagious.
You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Roller blades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years.
I love ice cream.
It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process.
The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker.
If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now . . . go on and have a nice day.
Do something you WANT to . . . not something on your SHOULD DO list.
If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say?

And why are you waiting?

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask, "how are you?"
Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head?
Ever told your child, "we'll do it tomorrow."
And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch?
Let a good friendship die?
Just call to say "hi"?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift . . . Thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Take it slower.
Hear the music before the song is over.

"Life may not be the party we hoped for . . . but while we are here we might as well dance!"

A Sparse Diet Of Promises

Too many people put off something that brings them joy just because they haven't thought about it, don't have it on their schedule, didn't know it was coming or are too rigid to depart from their routine.

I got to thinking one day about all those people on the Titanic who passed up dessert at dinner that fateful night in an effort to cut back.
From then on, I've tried to be a little more flexible.

How many women out there will eat at home because their husband didn't suggest going out to dinner until after something had been thawed?
Does the word "refrigeration" mean nothing to you?

How often have your kids dropped in to talk and sat in silence while you watched 'Jeopardy' on television?

I cannot count the times I called my sister and said, "How about going to lunch in a half hour?"
She would gas up and stammer, "I can't. I have clothes on the line. My hair is dirty. I wish I had known yesterday, I had a late breakfast, it looks like rain."
And my personal favorite: "It's Monday."
She died a few years ago.
We never did have lunch together.

Because Americans cram so much into their lives, we tend to schedule our headaches.
We live on a sparse diet of promises we make to ourselves when all the conditions are perfect!

We'll go back and visit the grandparents when we get the kid toilet-trained.
We'll entertain when we replace the living-room carpet.
We'll go on a second honeymoon when we get two more kids out of college.

Life has a way of accelerating as we get older.
The days get shorter, and the list of promises to ourselves gets longer.
One morning, we awaken, and all we have to show for our lives is a litany of "I'm going to," "I plan on," and "Someday, when things are settled down a bit."

When anyone calls my 'seize the moment' friend, she is open to adventure and available for trips.
She keeps an open mind on new ideas.
Her enthusiasm for life is contagious.
You talk with her for five minutes, and you're ready to trade your bad feet for a pair of Roller blades and skip an elevator for a bungee cord.

My lips have not touched ice cream in 10 years.
I love ice cream.
It's just that I might as well apply it directly to my stomach with a spatula and eliminate the digestive process.
The other day, I stopped the car and bought a triple-decker.
If my car had hit an iceberg on the way home, I would have died happy.

Now . . . go on and have a nice day.
Do something you WANT to . . . not something on your SHOULD DO list.
If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say?

And why are you waiting?

Have you ever watched kids playing on a merry go round or listened to the rain lapping on the ground?
Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight or gazed at the sun into the fading night?
Do you run through each day on the fly?
When you ask, "how are you?"
Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done, do you lie in your bed with the next hundred chores running through your head?
Ever told your child, "we'll do it tomorrow."
And in your haste, not see his sorrow?
Ever lost touch?
Let a good friendship die?
Just call to say "hi"?

When you worry and hurry through your day, it is like an unopened gift . . . Thrown away.

Life is not a race.
Take it slower.
Hear the music before the song is over.

"Life may not be the party we hoped for . . . but while we are here we might as well dance!"

Unmanageable

When I drink, my past becomes my future.

S I T = Stay In Today.

Be Done With It

Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day.
You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Different Day

Every day is a different day.

You never know what it will bring.

That's the exciting thing about getting up every morning.

-- Alpha English

Let me remember that most days surprised me with their outcomes.
I never got exactly what I expected.
This is one certainty about life that I can always count on.

Today is bound to surprise me in how it unfolds.
I'll appreciate what comes my way.

Today

You had better live your best and
act your best and think your best today:
for today is the sure preparation for tomorrow and
all the other tomorrows that follow.
--Harriet Martineau

No matter how much I may regret or re-feel yesterday's painful experiences, there is nothing I can do to change what happened.
The past is forever beyond my control.
The same thing is true of the future.
No matter how much I may worry and fret over it, very few of us can predict what tomorrow will bring.
I can only prepare for a hope-filled future by living fully and confidently today.
Today is all I have. Let me make the most of it.