Today is an Empty Page: Write
Composition Posted: 452 words
Today is an empty page.
What will you write today? A million things will happen and ten million more won’t. Ten million weavings and turnings in the tapestry that could have happened but didn’t. Ten million lifetimes that I will never live. I swing my feet out of bed and stand on the cold hardwood floor, and I can’t help but thinking that if I hadn’t gotten out of bed the sun would not have risen today. Ten million decisions, all of them linked and intertwined throughout the day.
Every ordinary and commonplace thing that happens — and doesn’t happen — changes the universe a tiny shade. Maybe you’ll live today and change the rest of eternity because of it. This is today, and it is unimaginably rich, and textured. Today there will be a thousand births, and a thousand weddings, and a thousand funerals. And more, more than we can count because every life is magnified by seven billion.
And seven billion lives will change today.
Only twenty-four hours to the day but the world has already changed and is changing, changing every second. Today will never come again. And write carefully, because you only get one shot: you can’t edit life. The words that you write on this page are in your story for the rest of your life. You will never live today again, so live it to the fullest. Go for a walk: clear your head and think great thoughts. Listen to the birds and thank God for the snow. Keel over in wonder at the sight of the clouds mingled with the setting sun.
Live today like it’s the last chance you have to live. And it doesn’t matter if tomorrow will come, because you’re writing today, not tomorrow. But that’s the magic in it: tomorrow does come: day after day. And far from being repetitive, each day stands alone. And every day you get a new blank page: a new chance to live. God gives you a new page every day. And finally, when you are old and used-up, your book is ready to be bound.
But each new blank page comes after all of the written ones. It’s the rhythm the earth spinning around the sun, 365 days in the year, 18 years in my life. The sun rises, and the sun sets, and hastens to the place where it will rise again. And tomorrow it will begin again, and on, and on, until the world ends.
But tomorrow is not today. Tomorrow is after-today, and is different because of what happens today.
This is today. Love. Dream. Imagine. Take today for today, and look forward to tomorrow.
Because there’s another blank page waiting.