January 1

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards:  they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so that they will be happier.  The way it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. Margaret Young (as quoted in Simple Abundance)

Why has it taken me 52 years to understand this?!  This morning as I opened my brand new journal and began recording my first entry for the New Year I found myself writing these words:  “I truly want to begin this New Year--2003--in a new way which is to begin each day as though it were a new year--to live every  day.  I want to get to the end of this year and feel as though I’ve lived 365 years.  This may sound strange to an outsider, but not to me who feels as though I’ve only lived 52 days--not years.”  It would seem that Charlie Brown expresses best the way I’ve been used to living when he responded to Linus’s admonition to think only about today by declaring, “No, that’s giving up.  I’m still hoping yesterday will get better.”  When one “backs into” one’s life as I have it’s understandable why I would feel as though a whole year’s worth of living was merely a day’s worth.  My whole life stretches behind me!  I am never fully in the present.  Therefore, tomorrow is always about yesterday.  Today gets lost somewhere in between.  But no more!  From now on I’m going To Live Every Day!

“This is the day which the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Psalm 118:24