This is the day the Lord has made,
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
—Psalm 118:24
You’ve heard the advice. Don’t quit. Hang in there. Stay alert, alive, determined, unbeaten. Keep learning and growing.
Ralph Waldo Emerson experienced a life of grief and loss. He lost his father as a young boy, his brothers as a youth, his wife as a young husband, and his child as a father. But he counseled that to be happy we must live in the now, for that’s all we have.
“With reverted eyes [man] laments the past, or heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future,” said Emerson. “We cannot be happy and strong,” he concluded, “until we live in the present.”
The past has slipped beyond our influence and the future is beyond our knowing. To be happy and fruitful, we must engage with the now.
No amount of regret can change the past,
and no amount of worry can change the future.