"Undress your soul at night and not by self-examination but by shedding as you do your garments the daily sins, whether omission or commission, and you will wake a free man with a new life. " During the great depression I didn't lose a thing, because I didn't have anything. But the depression has cost me much since then because I keep operating by the fears that I developed in the depression. I should have used the depression as a metaphor of night and left it when I entered a new day.
Before I spoke to a Realtors' marketing meeting a woman about thirty sat down beside me and started to chat. I don't exactly know how it happened but, without any offense, she asked me, "How old are you?" I shocked her by saying, "Your age," even though I was some forty years older than she. Surprised, she wondered if her makeup was failing her or my eyesight was failing me. Then I smiled and said, "Do you have any yesterdays?" She said, "No." I then said, "Do you have any tomorrows?" She said, "No." I said, "Neither do I. Therefore we are both the same age. We are TODAY." Later she wrote me a very cute note about being happy to be my same age.
For several years I served on an industry board with Mason Roberts, then President of Frigidaire Corporation.. He was a case study in daily living, for on his wall he had a calendar with this saying: "Having done my best today it will be easier to do better tomorrow. " He created a ritual of pulling off the page for the day, crumpling it up, putting it in the wastepaper basket and thanking God for the day. On those days when he hadn't done his best, he'd call his wife to delay dinner and work until he felt that he could say he had done his best…then the calendar page went into the basket and he went home.
One of the secrets of making the most of each day is to develop a strong repertoire of helpful habits. "Life is a habit" means a succession of actions have become more or less automatic. Aristotle felt the formation of habits was the basis of moral excellence. Habits are repetitive actions. It is difficult to fold a letter precisely the first time but after the first folding it folds very naturally in the crease once established. Just so our actions are easier as they become habitual. Often our greatest skills are simply repeated actions, such as piano playing, hitting a baseball, and ultimately, in golf, trying to get a repeatable swing. Driving a car, which is so complicated on first try, gets to be habitual——in fact, so much so that we learn to do some extremely strange things while driving. After surgery one of our granddaughters had her arm in a cast. I was amazed to see her driving one handed, carrying on business via cell phone and keeping an eye on her 5 year old son.
Living in day-tight compartments can become the happy consequence of a diligent habit. Plutarch said, "Character is long-standing habit." First we decide on the desirable habit, then we repeat it through watchful discipline, amd finally it becomes a reflex.
