The Other Side of Tomorrow

 "Today's greatest labor-saving device is tomorrow".

                                                    --- Woodrow Wilson

Was the 28th U.S. President being facetious or was he serious when he said that?  Either way, he  was actually being truthful in a way, with a hint of sarcasm; we'll have to imagine.  I don't know in what context he said that except that perhaps he tried to elicit some humor - pushing today's chore into tomorrow, thus saving one's labor today until then. 

If not for this one little flaw in the human character, spelling would have been one word less difficult in the English language. But the Romans did originate the word - in Latin, naturally - from a combination of pro ("forward") and crastinus ("belonging to tomorrow"). A few centuries later, fourth graders had to deal with spelling it. Notably enough, later in their teen years, homework and cleaning their rooms were often managed into an art form of many shades of procrastination.  But then another president had a different message ..

"You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today".

                                                            -- Abraham Lincoln

One more word of wisdom from an unlikely source before we move on. I'm not sure if this was not ghost-written for the North Korean leader, quoted below. Worth noting however because it is ideologically or politically neutral, but it reminds us of the three clear  boundaries of time.

"There can be neither today without yesterday nor tomorrow without today".

                                                             -- Kim Jong Un

Of all the three delineated by the quote above, tomorrow is the most powerful one.  Yes, today is where we get to do anything but tomorrow is the one filled with many possibilities.  But yesterday is no less important. 

It was the former Filipino general who waded with Gen. Douglas MacArthur on the shores of Leyte Island, Philippines, upon the latter's promise of, "I Shall Return", that was the prelude to ending the Pacific war in WWII who said:

"I am a Filipino–inheritor of a glorious past, hostage to the uncertain future. As such I must prove equal to a two-fold task–the task of meeting my responsibility to the past, and the task of performing my obligation to the future".  

                                                                -- Carlos P. Romulo

He later became Secretary General of the United Nations and a Pulitzer Prize winner. In this famous photo, Romulo is the helmeted general behind and to the left of  MacArthur.

What he said applies to any group of people today or, for that matter, to any individual willing to contemplate what to do with the many tomorrows yet to come.  

Hopefully, we have learned from all the yesterdays that made us who we are today and the lessons learned we are able to apply today in the hopes that we pick the best decision from the many options we will face tomorrow.  We learn from the past, apply them today and go through the whole process again tomorrow.

The next quote says it best:

"All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seed of today". 

                                                                         -- Croft M. Pentz

Alternatively, you may just want to sing a few bars from "Annie"

"Oh!

The sun'll come out

Tomorrow

So ya gotta hang on

'Til tomorrow

Come what may!

Tomorrow, tomorrow!

I love ya tomorrow!

You're always

A day

Away!"

                                                                                  

Hope you enjoy your today and think well of your tomorrow!