This Day is All I Have

Reading random obituaries online impacted me, partly because it triggers memories of my late father. I loved my dad, yet most often I was not able to connect with him.

One standard response the man had to problems and adverse situations was this one sentence that he repeated for decades and which was his way of keeping a mental and emotional distance to the urgencies of his own and others, even the ones closest to him.

“We’ll just wait and see”, he would say, followed by a confirmation stating that e.g. in a situation like this, you don’t have a choice, or nothing can be done about it.

The announced response that often never came, but supposedly manifested in a future, near yet too far away to hold, paralyzed the taking of initiative today.

I always felt a mute but strong inner resistance to the passive attitude he took on, claiming it to be the only proper way to handle influence on the course of external events in one’s life. Non-action, as opposed to what Mandino states,

Live this day like it is your last. This day is all I have.

— Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman in the World, Scroll 5

My dad made a lot of plans for after his retirement, but nothing came of it. He lived another 30 years, outlived my mom by 12 years, but never found the drive to fill his days with joyous activity, the promises made at the time to himself and to his wife.

It was like his flame switched to ultra-economy pilot and his days passed by in strict routines and reclusion. If he had found happiness I would have joined him, but it wasn’t what he found. He struggled to set himself in motion, like considering the pay-off not worth the effort.

Witnessing his later life gave me the conviction to actively give direction to my later stage in life, to break away from predictable patterns and with a profound need to become an autonomous thinker.

Illness and sudden poverty haven’t clipped my wings and there is still that burning desire to find a stimulating home and workplace, to reshape my creative language, and to communicate with others, and to discover.

While beating fear and idleness, I will live this day like it is my last, not being paralyzed by yesterday’s losses or tomorrow’s uncertainties, but holding in clear focus the person I want to become.

My present is the only moment to realize profound change, even when age and incorporating in a professional environment have become a mismatch or when circumstances apparently look bland and adverse.

Within the limiting boundaries of my current situation I work on becoming an autonomous thinker, not an endless worrier.