Today's Quotation:

Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of life.
In its brief course
Lie all the truths and realities of your existence:
The bliss of growth
The glory of action
The splendor of achievement,
For yesterday is but a dream
And tomorrow is only a vision,
But today well lived makes every yesterday 
a dream of happiness
And tomorrow a vision of hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
Such is the salutation of the dawn.

--from the Sanskrit

Today's Meditation:

This day--it truly is all we've got.  There is nothing more in this life over which we have any control at all.  While our actions today may affect our tomorrows, it's still true that we have control only over today's actions and thoughts and reactions.  When you get right down to it, you could even say that we have only this moment, for we don't have control over any of our actions even half an hour into the future.  There's just right now.

If you want to grow and develop as a person, you must take some sort of action today to make sure it happens.  That means sitting down and reading a book that's important to you, or even planning to register tomorrow for a certain course or seminar.  It may not take place for a while, but by making plans today you can guarantee that you'll be a part of it.

I think that we're not taught to appreciate this thing called "today."  We tend to take it for granted, for here it is--it has come unannounced, and we haven't had to do anything for it to become part of our lives.  It just came.  We appreciate those moments that we've worked for--slipping into a hot tub after a long and difficult day, leaving for a nice vacation, receiving the raise at work--but we tend not to see our right now as the most important moment of our lives.

So we tend not to appreciate it.  But it doesn't have to be so.  We can look to this day as the beautiful gift that it is.  It really does contain everything, and we can see it all if we train ourselves to do so.  You are living in a beautiful new today right now, and you have the choice to look to it for the marvel that it is, or to take it for granted as just another day.  Which do you think will help you the most?

Questions to ponder:

1.  What are some reasons for which we take each day for granted?

2.  What are some of the marvelous gifts that you can see as part
of your life at this very moment?  Do you often stop to consider them?

3.  If we don't take advantage of today,
what day can we take advantage of?

I have always been delighted at the prospect of a new day,
a fresh try, one more start, with perhaps a bit of magic
waiting somewhere behind the morning.

J.B. Priestley