Again I say rejoice

Listen to this post:

This is the day the Lord has made — that in itself is reason to be glad, so rejoice!

Another day to love your loved ones. Another day to create the best version of yourself. Another day to find room for the important stuff. Be glad!

You will find that a smile will be returned, a kind word will be accepted with kindness, and a joyful word — well, the recipient may respond with a skeptical smile, but even the least joyful soul will be moved just a little bit towards joy. In the darkness it’s hard to find a little joy, but when one encounters a joyful soul, a little joy just may rub off; it’s almost inevitable.

So rejoice! Again, I say rejoice!

“Oh, but I am old, and all my joints ache.” Rejoice for a good long life and yet another day to pursue happiness.

“Oh, but I am young, and my prospects are so dim.” Rejoice for all the opportunities you have to choose — Look here! Look there! You’ll find them.

That pursuit of happiness thing: Remember those words — God gave you the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, rights that are certain and inalienable. “Oh, but I can’t do that, it’s not allowed for someone like me.” Says who? The only limit to your freedom is you can’t mess with someone else’s freedom.

And so, live! Be free! Pursue what makes you happy! The Lord made this day for you. Make the most of it.

The second guess

If I could do it over again — if I could go back in time — if I had said what was on my mind before I went through with it — If I had just shut up that time —

There’s a new Spider-Man movie coming out this week. One of Marvel’s themes in recent years has been alternate universes — somewhere in another dimension is a “you” and a “me” who made a different choice at key moments in our lives: took that one job or refused it, married that person or decided to cancel the wedding, that sort of thing.

In the last film they took clever advantage of the fact that three different actors have portrayed Spider-Man in the movies, by crafting a story where all three Peter Parkers were real, just in different universes, and they worked together.

It’s fun imagining “What if,” except when it isn’t, when we sink into wondering if our lives would be better now if we had made a different decision back then. Let’s cut to the bottom line: You can’t change your past decisions, and it’s a waste of time, energy and emotion to guess what the outcome would have been.

Yesterday is etched in stone, and tomorrow is never exactly what we imagined it to be. The only thing we can control is today, this very moment, right now.

Our best option is to pay attention today, this very moment, right now, and make the choices that seem right and proper in this present moment. Rather than brooding about past decisions, we can incorporate what we learned back then into making this moment the best version of reality we can muster.

All we have is this universe. Even if there are alternate universes, this is the one we’re living in, and it’s very unlikely we’ll ever get a peek into those other worlds. So let’s make the most of this one.