The famous lines in the musical Annie come as Annie dreams of the promise that better days are ahead.
“Tomorrow, Tomorrow!
I love you tomorrow
You’re always a day
Away”
Hope of a better tomorrow, an improved future is the why that drives and overrides the what for many people. Most of our routine actions, things that we do automatically without hesitating or thinking, are done for tomorrow. Education, cleaning, shopping, saving money, and working out all are done for the promise of better days ahead. Everyone has things that they are looking forward to whether that be a nice dinner, the night off, a weekend free, or a dream vacation. Our lives are defined in periods and have a cyclical rhythm to them. Segments of our lives may be defined by our grade, our position in a company, the home we live in, a particular project on which we work, or a special relationship. Days are broken by nights, weeks by the weekends, and years by the seasons.
As alluring as tomorrow may be, a tomorrow incorporating an endless horizon, an eternal blank canvas, is a debilitating curse. There is not enough variety in the world, enough hobbies or occupations, enough people or places to keep one engaged for an eternity. Sooner or later, even with the best of intentions and limitless resources, the world becomes mundane. An unending vacation begins to feel like work, a retirement without anything to occupy the time like a waiting room for death. We begin to resonate with the uplifting and encouraging words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes “Meaningless, meaningless…utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” (NIV).
Tomorrow is a blessing. The future gives us hope. Immortality, as enticing as it sounds, would be itself the poison and end of a meaningful and purposeful life. Time is the commodity often wasted in yearning for a future time. The blessing of tomorrow is, in reality, a blessing of today, meant to be valued and treasured as a rare and fleeting opportunity.
Redeem the time, look to tomorrow while living in today.
JR.Stanley 