Saturday, September 10, 2011

Live for Today

I believe it was Dale Carnegie who coined that some years ago - it was to do with - and I'm paraphrasing this so bear with me whilst I put my spin on it:

You live for today and mustn't regret the past - that has happened and you cannot do anything about it - it's in the past and that's gone. Neither must you live for tomorrow as well it may not arrive, it means you're not living for today which is the only thing you can live for. Tomorrow hasn't happened, the past can't be changed. In a way it is a difficult way to live as if you are like me you may regret things in the past and sometimes I look back and we were having a conversation tonight and my daughters and my nephew were amazed that you were allowed to smoke on trains, on the underground, in planes, in shops and all over the place. I regret that I ever did smoke but that was the life I was brought up in, everyone smoked and all your mates smoked etc etc.

The point? Well the point is that I was trying to explain that there's things that you need to let go - it's difficult and it isn't in our nature but I am trying like mad to let go of the past as it doesn't help me and it holds you back and that's not good. It warps your mind can poison it too. This is what I find, that things I regret can become a burden and yet there's nothing I can do to change it and that word spoken in anger, or some sort of action I now think wasn't right cannot be undone, forget it and move on. I am finding myself regretting the past but also building up a sort of hit list of people who'd done me wrong and I was planning revenge that realistically I couldn't take, blaming these people for something that it isn't really possible that they'd actually done.

The brain is a strange thing and so I found myself with this stupid set of thoughts and decided that it was time to do something about them. Then Dad got ill and L is off to University proper - staying away and I can see that there's a little reticence about it from L and Mrs. F. and yet I see the positives in this and would have jumped at the chance. It isn't as if we are that far away. But what I was getting to was to be positive, go for the day as tomorrow hasn't happened yet.

So Dad's situation is all about the day and the future isn't looking nice but like us all we can't do anything about that. We can just do our best everyday and not waste it.

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