Sometimes I feel like I am doing it wrong. Any of this. All of it. Life in general.
There is someone in history called Publilius Syrus. He was a Latin writer born in 85 BC. In all his wisdom, he once said, “Each day is the scholar of yesterday.” Learning from the day before.
And then there is the doing it wrong.
It is the flip of a switch, really. Some days feel very connected and good — like everything is in its place. I can look around and say, “Oh. I get it.” Conversely, other days seem sideways. Wonky. The Big Glitch. Nothing seems to line up, or make sense.
Back to Publilius. First of all, if I were Publilius, I think I would have changed my name. To anything. Buttockso. Groinly. Anything. But the thought of someone saying, during any given day, “Hey Pube. What’s up with your bad self?” Nope. I just couldn’t have it.
Anyway, the quote. “Each day is the scholar of yesterday.” I would love to think this is true for every good soul on this planet. Unfortunately, it is not. I’d like to say it is true of me too. But honestly, there are times when I do the same dumb things over and over again.
I think most of us knows how it goes. Putting the old foot in the mouth. Losing our patience. Forgetting something that we most certainly should have remembered to do — like checking our shoes for that strand of toilet paper after we’ve left a public restroom.
Yes. These are the things.
Sometimes it is deeper though. There are those moments when it really strikes a chord, and we think, “Why on God’s green earth, did I do that?”
Yet again, there is our truth. We are human. “To err is human, to forgive, divine.” I think as long as we try to keep learning we are moving in the direction of scholarly-today. But perhaps the most important thing is the forgiveness.
That moment when we understand that there is no perfection. That humans make mistakes. That for the most part, we are all trying to do the best we can do. And that includes ourselves. When this realization finds us, it becomes easier to show compassion and forgiveness.
And in those moments when we wonder if we are getting things right? Just the fact that we are considering this, shows we are learning. And that is how we moved, from yesterday to today, in all our good wisdom.
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“So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
― Ernest Hemingway, Death in the Afternoon
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“Last night I lost the world, and gained the universe.”
― C. JoyBell C.
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“Forgiveness is not an occasional act, it is a constant attitude.”
― Martin Luther King Jr.
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