Tomorrow Is Another Day

I have often pondered my answer to the question, "What was the best advice your parents (your mom, your dad) ever gave you?"  Other people always seem to have such lengthy lists, about how to be successful, how to treat other people, how to balance life, etc., etc..  As in: "my dad always told me, be careful how you treat people on the way up, because you may need them when you're on the way down."  Or some such blah blah blah.

Jeez, I think to myself, I don't remember getting actual advice from my parents! Well, except for my dad teaching me how to write checks and balance my checkbook.  And both of them implying that probably voting Republican was not an option, unless it was for Abraham Lincoln.

The "advice" question seems always to be posed in the context of -- FOND memories of guidance and example. So my folks' lousy relationship, the alcohol and anger problems, the coldness (mom) combined with the sentimental efforts at connection (dad),  no, those are probably NOT the answers the questioner seeks.  I have been unable to remember the FOND type of parental advice.

Until.....today! There is something that I say to myself all the time, and remember that my mom used to say it to me, and I remember her saying it to me from when I was quite young, probably to comfort me if I was having a bad day.  I can hear her sighing it at the end of some busy goofy day later in my life when I was visiting her and as usual we crammed too much into one day.

And it is....TOMORROW IS ANOTHER DAY.  It was like a mantra, said to me many, many times. And today I realized -- hey this is the way I can answer that question!!  That was GREAT ADVICE!!

And I actually have used it my entire life.  I have ALWAYS felt comforted by the notion that "this too shall pass," which I feel is an equivalency to "tomorrow is another day."  You get to start over again!!! It's not the end of the world!!  Let's work on that tomorrow, after you've had a good night's sleep!!  Think of all the positive ways "tomorrow" can be interpreted.  It works for me!

Of course there IS other advice my parents gave me over the years, of course there is. The advice I got does not have to look or sound like the advice other people's parents gave!  So just as I've identified "tomorrow" as "advice," I now think of lots of other life recommendations my parents passed on.

Here are some of them!
* reading is important
* libraries are FUN
*voting is mandatory
*racism and anti-semitism are bad
*there are many religions and that's good.

WAIT, AND NOTICE

There is a difference between learning something and knowing it.  You can intentionally learn something, but you cannot intentionally know it.  Knowing comes unexpectedly.  You don't schedule it and you don't anticipate it.  Just as a for instance:

Washing my face yesterday afternoon (I got a late start)....becoming aware of a peaceful yet buoyant kind of attitude within myself -- not my usual state of mind.  Peaceful, yet buoyant.  And then the joyful thought -- just notice.  Just observe.  No need to hang on.  No need to analyze.

Here's where the knowing comes in.  At that moment, I knew what I've been learning about in meditation and yoga classes,sitting in silence, reading, journaling, listening to guided meditations.

Which is....everything is changing all the time, pain becomes fear becomes sadness becomes wonder becomes joy....etc., etc.  It is our stories and our judging that add pain to our lives, the stories we tell ourselves, the add-ons to what is.  So that we pay attention to our stories, and in fact we think our stories are "true," and we don't really know what is. And when and if we feel joy, we want it to last longer, and we want to know how to replicate it tomorrow.  And when we feel pain, we turn away and attempt to analyze how we can get rid of it.  Or we give it to other people.

But washing my face yesterday afternoon, I noticed.  I just noticed.

The thing is, I have been feeling sluggish, and a little stuck, and disengaged.  For awhile.  In the wilderness.  And then this morning, I was awake, and I went to yoga, and the day just flowed.  I was out of the house for 11 hours -- on a Sunday -- and it just flowed.

Do you think the knowing from the afternoon before had anything to do with the clarity I felt today?

Over and over today the word I thought was.....WAIT.  Things change.  Things get unstuck.  Emotions get re-engaged.  Energy gets replenished.  Being awake happens.  And the other way around too.

Knowing comes unexpectedly.  You wash your face and you notice.