I asked God:
God, what is my ultimate goal?
What should I want to do with my life?
What should I want to become at the end?
What should I look back on and know that I lived a worth-while life?
What do you want me to accomplish with this life that you have given me?
He answered, after a moment of stillness and silence:
Fulfill your purpose for today.
OK. What is my purpose for today?
Be a disciple of Jesus Christ, today.
Love God, and love my neighbor, today.
Don’t let tomorrow get in the way of today.
My ultimate goal is the same today, and tomorrow, and every day that I draw breath.
Matthew 6:34 "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
If I focus on achieving some goal 20 years from now, I’m going to sacrifice things that are valuable to me today, with no grantee that I’m even going to be pursuing that same goal 20 years from now.
So many times I hear “successful” people talk about how wrong they were in the goals they set when they were younger because they didn’t have the perspective to know what was truly valuable and worth living for at the time. Setting out with a goal to get rich, only to find out that the money was not worth the sacrifice.
They learn, and they grow from that experience, of course, but they can’t get that time back.
If I want to look back on my life and not have any regrets, well, how do I do that? I don’t do it by saying that such and such a goal was worth the trail of sacrificed relationships it caused. I don’t do it by saying that being the smartest person on this or that topic was worth not knowing or experiencing so many other things.
I do it by saying that I lived each day to its fullest. By saying that I was not burdened by worry or guilt or vice, but that I was free to love everyone I met, that I was free to marvel at all of God’s creation, that I was free to grow in my knowledge of and faith in God.
Today is the only day we have control over, and honestly, because of the level of chaos in the universe, we don’t even have control over that.
It’s like Jesus tells us: don’t worry about tomorrow, today is enough. We can have high expectations and goals for ourselves today. I’m not saying that we need to roll over and hit the snooze button because tomorrow doesn’t matter. I’m saying that whatever you value the most, you should be valuing it today.
If you value relationships, engage in those relationships today. If you value experiences, set your focus on having those experiences today. If you want to live a certain lifestyle, start living that lifestyle today - for some of you, you might have to do this one in your mind for a while, but there’s nothing wrong with that.
Likewise, pay attention to everything you do today. If there’s anything that you don’t like doing today, and you know that you do it every day. Identify that and focus your day on changing that to something that you do want to do every day.
If you’re stuck in a job, or a relationship, or a situation that you don’t want to be in, then do something about it today. Sure, you’re going to have thoughts about what it will be like “some day” once you have changed things, but don’t get caught up in that. Let that be a guide or a direction, but it’s not the focus. The focus is today. Can you make a phone call, or read a book, or sign up for a class, or do anything to change today into a day that will give you joy when you look back on it.
I emphasize looking back a lot, and in a way it’s just a form of looking forward. I’m not trying to get you to look at your life from the rear-view mirror. I’m just trying to drive home the idea of focusing on today rather than tomorrow. I suppose there are those of you who perhaps spend too much time looking back, and to you I would say - It’s in the past, let it go. Today is where you are. Be here. Now is where you are. Be here. What you are currently doing (reading this) is how you are spending your time. Make the most of it. Which would mean, stop multi-tasking, stop day-dreaming, focus your intention and attention on what you are doing. If it’s not a positive thing in your life, then change your intention and attention to something that is.
Someone once gave me some great advice. You don’t have to focus on kicking the bad people or things out of your life. Instead, focus on filling your life with so many good people and things that there’s just no room left for the bad.
Think about that for a minute. If you focus on adding good things into your life. The bad will have no choice but to leave. Just like filling a room with light forces all the darkness out. You don’t get rid of the darkness in a room, you fill it with light and the darkness naturally goes away.
Make today about positive thoughts, positive people, positive experiences. Focus all of your thoughts and attention on them, and you won’t even have to try to get rid of the bad. They will either become positive, or they will go away.
Think about it this way. If you are trying to be rich, and you are working long hours, and you are sacrificing relationships today in pursuit of your goal. Then all of your todays are going to add up and you are going to look back and see this person who was always poor and always trying to grasp something that was just out of reach.
Your life will be filled with unfulfilled days. And the nature of living that way is that you will be so conditioned towards living for a goal that’s just beyond the horizon that you won’t be satisfied with it once it is within your grasp.
Say you set a goal when you’re 20 to become a millionaire by the time you’re 25. You work hard and sacrifice your relationships and maybe even your health, and you achieve your goal, perhaps even earlier than you expected and become a millionaiare when you are 24.
What’s next? Well, the world is your oyster. Now you set a goal to turn your million dollar business into a billion dollar legacy. And the sacrfices continue. And the days pass by. And the goals keep coming and going. And then you look back one day and say “what am I really getting out of all of this?”
If you’re not looking back and saying my time was fulfilling, it was worthy, it glorified God, it helped other people live a better life. If you’re not able to find more days that you would gladly live again than ones you wouldn’t, then something needs to change.
Is it wrong to try and become a millionaire? No, I don’t think it’s wrong if you’re doing it for some other reason than just having a big number on your bank statement. Building a business is one of the most influential things you can do in this world, so I would recommend that more people do it than not. But what is your day to day life like in that business? Are you competing, and cut-throating, and polluting, and leaving a trail of tears and bodies in your wake? Or are you building relationships, and exploring the world and yourself, and improving not only your life, but the lives of those around you?
What is it about today that you want to remember with gladness tomorrow? What is it about today that you want to do again tomorrow? What is it about today that you want to just enjoy today?
Carpe Diem
“Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero” - Horace
The quote above is taken from a Roman poet named Horace, and more specifically from his book named Odes from around 23 B.C. This is how it is translated in the English translation of the poem.
“Seize the present, trust tomorrow even as little as you may.”
And these are not literal translations, but they express a similar sentiment
- Make the most of the present and give little thought to the future.
- Enjoy the moment.
- YOLO (you only live once)
Now I’m not advocating that we all completely give up any care for tomorrow. My underlying concern for today, after all, is that I will be able to look back on it from tomorrow without regret. I am simply saying that if we focus on tomorrow, we will mis-handle today, but if we focus on today then tomrrow is likely to be a much better experience for us.