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The promise of tomorrow
Written by Nathan on January 28, 2009 at 9:49 pm from A Month of Resolve.
Written by Nathan on January 28, 2009 at 9:49 pm from A Month of Resolve.
Perhaps the greatest allure of an ongoing project is that regardless of today’s failures, there’s always tomorrow. In fact, that’s one of the joy-givers of life as well. The reverse is also true—that regardless of today’s successes, tomorrow’s challenges loom near. But on the whole the perpetual promise of tomorrow has always overshadowed the fear of coming challenges.
Despite my slow progress, many aches and frequently disappointing times I’ve taken frequent solace in tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll speed up. Tomorrow I’ll feel better. Tomorrow’s I’ll finally achieve what I want. But all of those tomorrows obscure the good work of today. For 4 weeks, I’ve pushed my body hard on a daily basis. For most of those days I’ve run 3 miles and for the remainder I exercised as hard as I thought I could (and often harder). I’ve reduced my time by almost 20% and if things work out, I may even edge that up to 25% when this project ends.
Certainly by some metrics this could be a month of failure. But I set out to chase Bush this month – to honor a resolution I (recklessly) made more than eight years earlier. And I’ve honored that resolution every day along the way. Sometimes all the talk of tomorrow and the promise of improvement has caused me to miss the value in the present. This isn’t just true of my month of resolve.
In a week or two (or three or four) my wife will give birth to our third child. As exciting as the building anticipation has been, balanced the building of tomorrow against the joy of today has been hard. I have two delightful children whom I adore right here, today. Two kids that are wonderful and engaging and kind and truly a pleasure to be with. And no matter what tomorrow holds, I don’t want to let a moment of today slip away for a lack of proper focus.
Often I hear short-term vision used as a derision toward a supposedly small-minded person. But a wrong emphasis on the long-view can be just as destructive. I could miss the months with my kids in my eagerness to perfectly prepare for the next child. I could ignore my investment in a full workout (a hard bike workout) today in my desire to get through to tomorrow.
Or I could pursue the potential I saw yesterday and seek to make today truly great. Perhaps I’ll fail—in fact often I will. But the cost of constantly ignoring today will surely prevent my tomorrow’s from ever being more than empty promise.