A New Day

While walking in a cute North Carolina town with my cousin, we came across this picture and I thought it was worth contemplating.

How often do we wake up and feel a sense of gratitude for a new day? I know it isn’t something that I do on a daily basis. But, if you read the lines illustrated above, it states this day has been given to you and to me. It further says what we do with our day is up to us, our will, which is quite true. Of course not everything about our day is or appears to be our will. We have duties, obligations and responsibilities to perform each day and much of that we cannot change. What we can control is how we act and react to the day at hand.

As you continue through each sentence, I find the next statement so interesting. It says we can waste or use our day for good, but furthermore, you are exchanging a day of your life for it. What is the “it”? What are we exchanging a day of our life for? The “it” is what we do with our day. Is it for anger, disappointment or for regret? Is it for hope, forgiveness or for love? 

Then we come to tomorrow and when tomorrow comes, the prior day is gone forever. We can’t go back. We can’t undo what was done yesterday. It’s gone forever; so dramatic but so true. However, even though something is gone forever, if we have a tomorrow, it can give us an opportunity to do something good. Hopefully we leave behind what is not so good and replace it with let it be good.

Leave behind something good

Read these sentences or this poem a few times and let percolate with you a bit. Allow it to sink into your thoughts so when you wake up to a new day, consider your choices. Much of your day is your will, so use it wisely so when today is gone, you have no regrets.