We Can Never Recover Yesterday....

In a day when one year ends and another starts, it is customary (normal? expected?) to look back and see how many resolutions were kept; how many never even got started; how many lasted the first three weeks, or for those more persistent, three months. I have always said I don’t do resolutions and that’s one reason why; I don’t have to look back and see what I did not accomplish; I don’t have to live with regrets about yesterday. I have other reasons but this is one of them. As we know, we cannot make up for lost time. We can never recover yesterday. There is no point in sleeping one day more than other to make up for a sleepless nights as you wake up with your body aching or fall behind schedule. There is no point in reading two books in a couple of days to make up for those we said we would read but did not. You won't learn or remember much about what you read. It doesn’t matter how much we visit and try to catch up with family and friends, nothing can replace the missing birthdays, anniversaries, and moments of laughter and moments of need. I was thinking that trying to relive or recover yesterday is like that sweater or pair of pants you put in a trunk and forgot. One day cleaning, you dig in that trunk and find the sweater (or the pants) and think (like I have) “I forgot I have this”; and then think about wearing it again. But… it doesn’t fit or even if it does fit, you have aged and the style is no longer appropriate. Even if it is a weight problem, it will take too long to get back to that size and wear it again. By that time you already forgot you own it… again. So, what do you do? You finally have to accept you can’t have it. The time is past for using it so you put it in a bag to donate it. There is that comforting thought that someone will be able to use it. I was thinking that’s pretty much what happens with the day gone, the opportunity lost, the yesterday we can’t recover. There is a lesson learned; maybe some wisdom as simple as “don’t leave for tomorrow what you can do today” but definitely a lesson that, just as the sweater that won’t be yours to wear again, someone else will benefit as you shared your lesson with someone who then won’t miss on yesterday. See, today will be yesterday pretty soon. You won’t have another today. So what it is you want to do or think you should do in order to live better, love more, laugh louder and don’t regret the today that will be come your yesterday? Don’t go doing resolutions and putting demands on yourself that you know you won’t keep. Live each day to the fullest, today, and you won’t have to waste time thinking on how to recover yesterday because you won't.