A Day in the Life....

I saw what follows hanging on a wall of a Rome, Georgia restaurant last June. I've been thinking a lot about its message lately.

The message had an impact on me. Was what I did yesterday a waste or was it good? What will I do with today, and tomorrow? And how do I decide what is waste and what is good? I suppose I could label every single activity I do as either waste or good, assign each of them a point value and at the end of the day add up both columns to see whether waste or good had the highest score. But that wouldn't work. A wasted or good day can't be determined numerically. It's determined by a feeling. Somehow, by some mechanism unknown to me I know at the end of the day whether it was a wasted or good day. And because we are all unique individuals, what may have been a wasted day for me was a good day for someone else, and vice-versa. But there's more to it then that.

I think that deciding on whether a day was good or wasted has as much or maybe even more to do with how many days you have, or hope to have remaining. When you're in your 20s it's okay to blow the day off. You've got lots of tomorrows. But as your tomorrows bank account diminishes each day takes on a greater importance. And, at least for me, the definition of a good or wasted day changes. A day doesn't have to be filled with activity to be good. All that is necessary for me is, at the end of the day, to feel peaceful and content about whatever I did. And when going to bed giving a little thought to what I might like to do with tomorrow. Whatever I do, I'd like it to be worthwhile. I'll be exchanging a day of my life for it.