Tomorrow may never come

by Lionel WIJESIRI

One of the most exciting things about life, I believe, is tomorrow. What I mean is that we have no real idea what tomorrow will bring and it makes life really interesting. Imagine for a second that you personally had no future beyond today.

How different would today be for you? What would you do? Who would you spend today with? Would you put right all those things that were wrong in your life? Could you even do that?

I can hear someone saying, “Well, These are morbid thoughts.” But in truth, how do you know that today really isn’t going to be your last? The truth is that you don’t. Still we take things for granted; still we don’t spare a second thought about tomorrow other than to make sure we know what we have in our schedules.

If you belong to this category, let me give you a piece of advice. To start with, don’t let pressure built in you by worrying about the spent parts of your life. Whether it’s your children’s early life, whole segments of your marriage, or maybe the last active years of loved parents, they are swiftly gone beyond recall. Regret comes too late to save them.

But think! How many people like you still cherish an unfulfilled ambition to travel, or start their own business, or enter a new career, and yet done nothing to make it happen? What was once an inspiring idea today seems less and less feasible. Yet still you cling to the dream - not only this year but maybe next year, waiting until you are not so busy and have the time.

We, Sri Lankans, are so confused about time. Our perception of time is totally different to other nations. Sometimes it seems to drag-in for endless periods. Sometimes it appears to flash past. But it’s only our perception that changes. Time itself does not.

The truth is simple. Most of us confuse what is urgent with what is important, meaning - what is pressing today with what is important in terms of our whole life.

A task may scream for your attention just because it’s here, and must be done by tomorrow. So you set aside far more important activities and choices because they are not screaming and they are not here. You can get away doing them (maybe) tomorrow. Only that tomorrow never comes.

To live this way is neither sensible nor fulfilling. All those unmet dreams and expectations build up, until you enter the later part of life trailing a vast, sad cloud of “might have beens.” So many people today are filled with regret at the opportunities they missed because there were more seemingly urgent claims at the time. As they look back, they see clearly those claims were never as important as the hopes they supplanted.

Now it’s too late.

To choose a fulfilling path, you must be clear about your values, so you can see the difference between demands that are only urgent, but otherwise have little importance in the scheme of your life; and those that may lack obvious urgency, yet are crucial to what you want your life to be. You must have the courage to make the choice.

If there’s a dream in your life, don’t put it aside. If that dream is up there at the top of your personal values, do it now. Yes, now. If you don’t make that choice now, you will look back one day and realize you’d missed that boat without ever realising it was ready to leave.