today - today 3
    

Our todays make our tomorrows, and our
present lives determine the bridge on
which we must enter the next life.

Minot J. Savage

     

Living life in terms of your vision and working toward your goals must be done in the context of today's activities.  Do not focus too heavily on the results of your efforts.  Do not live for the future attainment of your goal.  Live your life through the lens of your vision and what can be done in the present moment.   Living your vision is not about reaching your goals.  It is about living and working toward them.  It is not about producing results but about living your life in a more meaningful and personally rewarding way.

Ari Kiev

      

Each morning is a fresh beginning.  We are, as it were, just beginning life.  We have it entirely in our own hands.  And when the morning with its fresh beginning comes, all yesterdays should be yesterdays, with which we have nothing to do.  Sufficient is it to know that the way we lived our yesterday has determined for us our today.  And, again, when the morning with its fresh beginning comes, all tomorrows should be tomorrows, with which we have nothing to do. Sufficient to know that the way we live our today determines our tomorrow.

Ralph Waldo Trine
"Thoughts I Met on the Highway"

  
It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.  In the same manner present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.

Samuel Johnson
   

The present contains all that there is. It is holy ground; for it is the past, and it is the future.

Alfred North Whitehead

  

Begin today!  No matter how feeble the light, let it shine as best it may.
The world may need just that quality of light which you have.

Henry C. Blinn

   

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See each morning a world made anew, as if it were the
morning of the very first day; treasure and use it,
as if it were the final hour of the very last day.

Fay Hartzell Arnold

  

Just for today I will remember that I am getting better and
becoming whole.  I will realize that I have more to
bring to a relationship than I did yesterday.  Just for today
my life is beautiful, I am beautiful, and I have all I need to get
through the day.

Katherine Gardner

   

A fresh attitude starts to happen when we look to see that yesterday
was yesterday, and now it is gone; today is today and now it is new.
It is like that--every hour, every minute is changing.  If we stop
observing change, then we stop seeing everything as new.

Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche

  
Just for Today
Sybil F. Partridge


Just for today I will be happy.  This assumes that what Abraham Lincoln said is true, that "most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."  Happiness is from within; it is not a matter of externals.

Just for today I will try to adjust myself to what is, and not try to adjust everything to my own desires.  I will take my family, my business, and my luck as they come and fit myself to them.

Just for today I will take care of my body.  I will exercise it, care for it, nourish it, not abuse nor neglect it, so that it will be a perfect machine for my bidding.

Just for today I will try to strengthen my mind.  I will learn something useful.  I will not be a mental loafer.  I will read something that requires effort, thought, and concentration.

Just for today I will exercise my soul in three ways; I will do somebody a good turn and not get found out.  I will do at least two things I don't want to do, as William James suggests, just for exercise.

Just for today I will be agreeable.  I will look as well as I can, dress as becoming as possible, talk low, act courteously, be liberal with praise, criticize not at all, nor find fault with anything and not try to regulate nor improve anyone.

Just for today I will try to live through this day only, not to tackle my whole life problem at once.  I can do things for twelve hours that would appall me if I had to keep them up for a lifetime.

Just for today I will have a program.  I will write down what I expect to do every hour.  I may not follow it exactly, but I will have it.  It will eliminate two pests, hurrying and indecision.

Just for today I will have a quiet half-hour all by myself and relax.  In this half-hour sometimes I will think of God, so as to get a little more perspective in my life.

Just for today I will be unafraid, especially I will not be afraid to be happy, to enjoy what is beautiful, to love, and to believe that those I love, love me.
  
There is only one way really to live, and that is to start out every
morning with a firm resolution to get the most out of that day, to
live it to the full.  No matter what happens or does not happen,
what comes or does not come, resolve that you will extract from
every experience of the day something of good, something that will
make you wiser and show you how to make fewer mistakes to-morrow.
Say to yourself, "This day I begin a new life. I will forget everything in
the past that caused me pain, grief, or disgrace."

Orison Swett Marden
The Joys of Living
   

Today is gold that covers hill and dell,
and rich are they who use it well.

Pearl Phillips

   

Would'st shape a noble life?  Then cast
No backward glances toward the past,
And though somewhat be lost and gone,
Yet do thou act as one new-born;
What each day needs, that shalt thou ask,
Each day will set its proper tasks.


Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  today - today 3  

  
I find it much more difficult to live in the present than many people lead us to believe it is. The other day I was hiking up a mountain, and I found it a constant struggle to focus on all that surrounded me, all the beauty that was there. All this struggle, and I try to live fully in the present. I have to wonder how difficult it is for people who make no attempt to do so. My mind was all over the place--on something that had happened the day before, on something that had happened weeks or months or years before, on some things that had never happened, on what I was going to be doing when I got home and the next day and the next week. . . .

It's fascinating to see just how quickly the mind can focus elsewhere. Thought is a gift, but I believe that too often, we use it as a way to escape today, to escape this present moment, because right now is too boring or too dangerous or too risky. Of course, we have to make plans and we have to think ahead, but can't we get the most out of the now while we're doing so? I find that I'm most fully in the present when I'm working on something, focusing on the process of creating something or fixing something or fulfilling some need.

I believe that it takes a lot of work to learn to focus on the present moment, and I know that I've still got a lot of work to go.

Or maybe I'm all wrong--maybe those people who don't have to try to live in the present are the ones who do so most fully.
  

 
Through loyalty to the past, our mind refuses to realize that tomorrow's
joy is possible only if today's makes way for it; that each wave owes the
beauty of its line only to the withdrawal of the preceding one.

Andre Gide
 

It is cheap generosity which promises the future in
compensation for the present.

J.A. Spender

 

Today's egg is better than tomorrow's hen.

Turkish proverb

 

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

 

Yesterday is ashes, tomorrow wood.  Only today does the fire burn brightly.

Eskimo proverb

 

In terms of days and moments lived, you’ll never again be as young as
you are right now, so spend this day, the youth of your future, in a way
that deflects regret. Invest in yourself.  Have some fun.  Do something
important.  Love somebody extra.  In one sense, you’re just a kid, but
a kid with enough years on her to know that every day is priceless.

Victoria Moran
Younger by the Day

 

  

I am not afraid of tomorrow, for I have seen yesterday and I love today.

William Allen White

 

I feel very happy to see the sun come up every day.  I feel happy
to be around. . . . I like to take this day--any day--and go to town with it.

James Dickey

  

We all get 24 hours a day.  It's the only fair thing; it's the only thing
that's equal.  It's up to us as to what we do with those 24 hours.

Sam Huff

   
 

It is something to be able to paint a particular picture,
or to carve a statue, and so make a few objects beautiful;
but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere
and medium through which we look.
To affect the quality of the day--that is the highest of arts.

Henry David Thoreau

    
Do today's duty, fight today's temptation; do not weaken yourself
by looking forward to things you cannot see,
and could not understand if you saw them.

Charles Kingsley
   

Think not of what you did yesterday, but what
you can do for yourself today.

Jerry Pate

  

Cease to inquire whatever the future has in store,
and take as a gift whatever the day brings forth.

Horace

  

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I will live this day as if it is my last.

And if it is my last, it will be my greatest monument.
This day I will make the best day of my life.  This day I will drink every minute
to its full.  I will savor its taste and give thanks.  I will make every hour count
and each minute I will trade only for something of value.  I will labor harder than
ever before and push my muscles until they cry for relief, and then I will
continue.  I will make more calls than ever before.  I will sell more goods
than ever before.  I will earn more gold than ever before.  Each minute
of today will be more fruitful than hours of yesterday.  My last must be my best.

I will live this day as if it is my last.

And if it is not, I shall fall to my knees and give thanks.

Og Mandino
The Greatest Salesman in the World

   

You have to count on living every single day in a way you believe
will make you feel good about your life--so that if it
were over tomorrow, you'd be content with yourself.

Jane Seymour

   
From the spiritual side:
   

They who have so many causes of joy, and so great, are very much in love
with sorrow and irritability if they lose all these pleasures and choose
to sit down upon their little handful of thorns.  Enjoy the blessings of this day,
if God sends them, and bear patiently and sweetly the evils of it,
for this day only is ours.  We are dead to yesterday, and we are not yet born
to tomorrow.  But if we look abroad and bring into one day's thoughts
the evil of many things certain and uncertain, what will be and
what will never be, our load will be as intolerable as it is unreasonable.

Jeremy Taylor

today - today 3

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I compare the troubles which we have to undergo in the course of the year
to a great bundle of sticks, far too large for us to lift.  But God does not require us
to carry the whole at once.  He mercifully unties the bundle, and gives us
first one stick, which we are to carry today, and then another, which we are
to carry tomorrow, and so on.  This we might easily manage, if we would only take
the burden appointed for us each day; but we choose to increase our troubles
by carrying yesterday's stick over again today, and adding tomorrow's burden
to our load, before we are required to bear it.

John Newton
  

What we are left with then is the present, the only time where miracles happen.
We place the past and the future as well into the hands of God. The biblical
statement that "time shall be no more" means that we will one day live fully
in the present, without obsessing about past or future.

Marianne Williamson

  

Only you know what you need to do to live a happy life.  You are
the expert and know the secret lies in loving, forgiving, believing,
accepting, and creating.  You probably intend to do all of that,
and are deciding now when you are going to start living
your authentic life.  Stop deciding, just do it!
    Remember this:  Now is the only time you have.  When God created
the universe, it was now.  You can't say to creation and energy,
"I'll do it later, not now." Later doesn't exist.  Creation doesn't know
anything but now.  Whenever you get around to doing what you
want to do, it will be now.  The things you need to do to live a happier,
more fulfilling life--the only time you can possibly start doing them is now.

Bernie Siegel

   
It has been well said that no person ever sank under the burden
of the day.  It is when tomorrow's burden is added to the burdens
of today that the weight is more than a person can bear.  Never
load yourselves so, my friends.  If you find yourself so loaded, at
least remember this:  it is your own doing, not God's.  He begs
you to leave the future to Him, and mind the present.


George MacDonald
   

Each day, and the living of it, has to be a conscious creation in which
discipline and order are relieved with some play and some pure foolishness.

May Sarton
Journal of a Solitude

  

        

When Walker first steps onto the road, he has no thoughts, no history, no memories, and no clothes. As he travels and meets people and learns from them, he comes to know more about life, living, and becoming the person he's meant to be. Walker is a parable for all of us who wonder what might be the purpose of life, why bad things happen with almost as much regularity as good things, and how we can learn from the bad examples and experiences in our lives as much as we can learn from the good things. Tom Walsh's parable is a story of the ages, a timeless exploration of ideas and thoughts that all of us wonder about, a sincere and heartfelt portrait of a man who has no past and no future, but who learns to make the most of each precious present moment as it comes.

  
   

        

Explore all of our quotations pages--these links will take you to the first page of each topic, and those pages will contain links to any additional pages on the same topic (there are five pages on adversity, for example).

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