A Brand New Day

What if today really is a brand-new day?

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” How many times have you heard that before? A statement like that loses its potency over time.

Here’s another way to think about this idea. You can only live life going forward. Whatever you did yesterday helps determine what happened to you today. Everything you do today counts toward determining what happens to you tomorrow and the day after. When you think about the things you’re going to do today, what guides your decisions? Are you going to do the same things you did yesterday? Sometimes that’s a good thing, but not always.

We value consistency in this culture—and if you do things differently today than you did yesterday, people often notice. If you’re trying to avoid drawing attention to yourself, repeating yesterday can be a good strategy. But if you’re trying to grow and become more as a person, doing what you’ve always done simply because you’ve always done it may not be the most useful strategy.

One of the Miriam Webster dictionary definitions of the word fiction is “something invented by the imagination”. Remember that your personal history is fiction. You’re constantly manufacturing it, and it’s only ever a mental construction. Your personal history was very real at the time it was being created, but that’s all over now. The only thing that lasts is your memory of it—which is something you fabricate.

Today IS a brand-new day, and you always have the choice to fabricate something new.