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.