Posts Tagged: time is egalitarian

“ONE DAY AT A TIME: DANCING IN THE RAIN”

On July 31, 2017 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“Anyone can fight the battles of just one day. It is only when you and I add the burden of those two awful eternities, yesterday and tomorrow that we break down. It is not the experience of today that drives us mad. It is the remorse or bitterness for something, which happened yesterday, or the dread of what tomorrow may bring. Let us therefore do our best to live but one day at a time. Am I living one day at a time?”  (Twenty-Four Hours a Day.)

 

“Dust of Snow”

 

BY ROBERT FROST

The way a crow 

Shook down on me 

The dust of snow 

From a hemlock tree

 

 Has given my heart 

A change of mood 

And saved some part 

Of a day I had rued.

One day is at a time is more than a slogan.  It is also more than a sitcom from the 1970’s and 1980’s.  One day at a time is all any of its gets to live or has to live.  The richest person in the world and the poorest person in the world each gets only one day at a time.  Time is one of the most egalitarian aspects of human existence.

Of course, not everyone gets the same circumstances or relationships to live his or her day.  So, perhaps the days are not so egalitarian after all.

On the other hand, I’ve noticed that people who have money, power, influence, pleasure, apparently good relationships, and good health aren’t always so happy in their days.  Some are plumb miserable.  And I knew a lady who sang hymns of praise to God the day she died at the end of her third round with ovarian cancer.  It would appear that we are back to time being about as good as we perceive it to be (or, perhaps, make it to be).

But, whether time makes us miserable or happy . . .  No!  That’s not the most helpful way of looking at the matter.  Time can’t make us either happy or miserable.  We are the ones in charge of whether time makes us happy or miserable.  We can’t create time itself, but we can often color it with either joy or sadness.

Not always.  Sometimes terrible things happen, and we simply cannot be joyful.  Sometimes we have to just stand there, like a cow in a cold rain.

But often, we can use our days to be happy, and to make others happy.

When the kids were little, we were about to go to the local outdoor swimming pool.  However, it began to rain.  There was distant thunder, and the pool was wisely shut down when there was lightning.

The kids—my youngest daughter in particular—were very disappointed.  However, I did a very wise thing: I said, “Look, you’ve got your swim things on.  Why not go out and dance around in the rain?”

And they did!  I don’t remember if I myself went out and danced in the rain.  Probably not.  But I should have.

 

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