“If you could do tomorrow over again, would you? “ — Seth Godin

We all think about yesterday. What would we do differently? What was the very best thing that happened in our day that we’d definitely do again? Yesterdays are easy to dwell on but impossible to change. We must give them weight accordingly.

Tomorrow is full of hope and promise and anticipation. But what if it turned out to be just like yesterday was? Are we always moving forward, staying roughly the same or slipping sideways? If life is a progression of experiences, what will tomorrow bring?

Today is all we have. We set up a brighter tomorrow with today. If we are the sum of our experiences and work, will today be accretive or dilutive? We must contribute something to our sum in the hour at hand to sustain personal and professional growth. A bias towards action isn’t the same thing as putting our nose to the grindstone, it’s simply favoring forward motion over stasis and stagnation.

So are we doomed to forever moving onward to the next, never savoring the fruits of our labor? All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. Indeed. But the point isn’t to always be productive with our hours, it’s to optimize our experience with them. What is more optimal than full awareness of the moment and using this (with all that this means to us) to the best of our advantage? Are we simply passing the time or using our time? Nothing sets up today and our blueprint for tomorrow more than this question.