The Best Advice I’ve Ever Been Given

Charge!

Charge!

Yesterday is not ours to recover,
but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.
Lyndon B. Johnson

 

Funny how things work. I had envisioned the start of school this year as a new beginning for me. Finally I would have a 6 hour stretch each day with noone but myself to take care of. Well not exactly—taking care of the house and family is my job, but at least for 6 hours a day I would not have to attend to immediate needs of others. In my fantasy, I would drop the children at school, do 15 minutes of meditation, go for a nice run or do some yoga, write a blog, research ideas for a new career, then attend to cleaning, shopping, cooking, family finances etc.

Here we are several months into it and while I have managed most of those things, they usually do not occur on the same day and not nearly as often as I would like. Instead of the nice runs, I have been going to endless doctor visits trying to fix my feet. Meditation? Not so much. I have done a bit of yoga and it is wonderful. Why don’t I do more? Career? I can’t even manage to clean the house and go to the grocery store!

I have managed a couple of trips that weren’t on the schedule–one to see my daughter (fun) and one to see my father (in ICU, but ended well), but for the most part, I have just muddled, starting one project and wandering into another and another and then its time to pick up the kids and do homework, dinner, baths and bedtime.

Not what I had envisioned. And it really mucks up the story I had been telling myself for the last 23 years: If I could just have two minutes to rub together where I wasn’t taking care of a client or a kid or a husband, I would get myself and my house and my money in perfect shape and find my “true calling” in life.

Yesterday I was thinking of good advice I have been given over the years. The best came from my husband, “You are just going to have to be stronger.” At the time, there were a lot of bad things going on in my life and I was looking for a shoulder to cry on, so his advice wasn’t well taken. I sulked for a while and then realized that he was right. So I was.

It was amazing to find that I could be stronger instantly–just by deciding that I would be.  A mental shift that changed my world.

Anyway yesterday, I was thinking that the corollary is:

It doesn’t matter what you did to get where you are, all you can do is go from here.

But today I saw the quote from Lyndon B. Johnson and while its meaning is the same, it is more elegant and inspirational: “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or to lose.” No more dwelling on my past mistakes; my focus is forward.

And as for some more best advice I was given, this time by my father:

CHARGE!

P.S. I am sure I didn’t thank either of them for their wisdom. So thanks Dad, thanks Hubby.

By Lee Brennan on Thursday, March 14, 2013

Categories: Goals, Resolution Tags: ,

One Response to “The Best Advice I’ve Ever Been GivenComment RSS feed

  • Markesens
    December 26th, 2016 3:02 pm
    #1

    As a kid I used to work at weekends, cleaning those ice cream vans that used to go around the streets and ring a bell to tell you they were there. The owner was a woman, a bit of tyrant. She worked hard herself and expected the same of those who worked for her. While i was cleaning windows on one of the vans she looked at what i was doing and said you are concentrating on the middle of the window, focus on the edges and the corners and the middle will take care of itself . it has been fifty years and it stays with me look after the details and the rest will take care of itself.