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It’s About Time Ruth Wong |
Make today and every day
the best day of your lifeWhen was the best day of your life? This was the question posed to some elderly women who were participating in a beauty contest in a nursing home.
A local celebrity had been asked to be the judge. When he arrived at the nursing home, he found a room full of hopeful women all dolled up in their finest clothes, with powdered faces and cheeks bright with rouge.
They all looked alike, and the judge wondered how he would be able to choose a winner.
So he proceeded to ask each contestant the above question. The answers of the elderly women included: "My wedding day -- that was the best day of my life!" and "The day I gave birth to my child -- that was the best day of my life!"
The answers were all pretty similar, so the judge still wondered how he would choose a winner.
Then one woman answered, "The best day of my life? Why, TODAY is, of course! Every day is the best day of my life!"
Needless to say, she was pronounced the winner!
After reading this story, I asked myself "When was the best day of my life?" I realized that if I considered a day in my past to be my best day, I'd be living too much in the past, and if I were still waiting for the best day of my life, I'd be too focused on the future. Either way, the present day might pass neither fully lived nor enjoyed.
So I decided that I would adopt the outlook that today (each and every day) would be the best day of my life.
Often, when I am having an ordinary day and remember that "this is the best day of my life," I find immediately that the level of awareness and enjoyment of the day is elevated. I become aware of all the blessings I enjoy, many of them so common and familiar that I take them for granted.
(To be realistic, there are days that would not be viewed as the best day, for in every life there may be days when devastating news is received or a tragic event occurs. On those days we do our best to deal with the circumstance and seek support to get through it. Hopefully, those days will be few and far between.)
NOW, WHAT DOES this have to do with time management and organization? I think that our attitudes about life and our day is crucial to how we value and use time. If today is the best day of your life, you probably won't spend it slacking off all day or being a couch potato for hours on end, or in futile worrying.
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher considers a supremely satisfying day not one spent lounging around doing nothing, but a day when there's everything to do, and it gets done.
Life is fragile and fleeting. I encourage you to begin making today (and each day) the best day of your life!
See you in three weeks!
"It's About Time," by Ruth Wong, owner of Organization Plus, runs the fourth Friday of each month. Contact her at "It's About Time," care of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, 7 Waterfront Plaza, Suite 210, Honolulu 96813; or e-mail features@starbulletin.com