One Day at a Time

When Abraham Lincoln said, “the best thing about the future is, it comes one day at a time”, I don’t think he realized that it is exaclty the sad part also. One of my friend went through a tough time with his parent. His dad was an alcoholic who’d get drunk, get hurt, get hospitalised (often in critical condition – either by accident or seizures), get discharged and drink again. This cycle repeated for seven years before his father passed away. My friend shudders even today whenever he recounts this horrid episode. It left him a changed person. A habit which his father cultivated day after day, ruined my friend’s life one day at a time. The worst part, he said, ‘it came slowly, one day at a time’.

This is what happens in life. Life doesn’t generally knock us down with one heavy blow, but by slow consistent hacking over a period of time. And, this is what makes it unbearable. To get up day after day only to see pain, leaves us hopeless and cynical. We may have the fortitude to face adversity had it happened once at a time, but, when things happen in installments, they break us. Living through hell every day with no escape has adverse effects on our lives, often destroying our innocence and eroding our hope for the future.

Life happens one day at a time – if that’s the pain point, it is also the solution. One point from Dale Carnegie’s seminal book, ‘How to stop worrying & start living’ suggests on living life one day at a time. Compartmentalizing life for one day, making that day liveable (if possible great), while exploring options to end our misery or accepting what cannot be changed, can help us live life. Just strive to get through this day. Just make this day great. Forget about plans, past, future & everything else. If you had only this day to live, what would you do to make it worthwhile? Think what steps you would take inspite of the problems and not despite the problems.

Another aspect I’ve found this thought very useful is in forming habits. People neither become addicts nor champions in a day. It happens over a time when certain set behaviours are repeated day after day. And, yet this is exactly why many of us have hard time forming habits. Cause we want results immediately, but we don’t see them for a long time. We neglect exercising cause we don’t see six pack bodies immediately. We neglect honing our skills ’cause we don’t see mastery immediately. We stop pursuing our dreams after few attempts or few rejections, ’cause we don’t see the results immediately. Change comes one step at a time. Our efforts need to reach a tipping point to be converted to results.

So, how to form a habit? how to see change in life? By repeating it consistently day after day. Hit the gym everyday with no eye on the results and one day you’ll see the body you crave. Practice your art day after day and you’ll see improvement in your craft. Work at your dream religiously, and it’ll come to fruition sooner than you expect.

Good or bad happens in our life because of what we repeat day after day. With patience, endurance & discipline, we can change our life, one step at a time, one day at a time.