This may take some following! I originally wrote it as a comment for someone's blog and having read it (and given it a bit of an 'edit' in an effort to make it easier to understand!), I thought it might be of interest to those whose 'bad days' seem to go on forever!
I remember long ago when I was having a particularly bad time at Uni, one of my friends, who was probably fed up with listening to my constant moaning, came up to me with a piece of string that was about 2 feet long. Instead of wrapping it tightly round my neck, he took hold of each end and stretched it out in front of me.
"Val" he said, "This is your life......"
Then he edged his fingers from the very ends of the string towards the middle until they were almost touching. Perhaps a half inch of the string was visible still stretched out. The rest was dangling. He raised the taut bit of string up for me to inspect.
"And this is your life right now. This is ‘Today’!"
He hitched his fingers along to the right, so that the 'today' bit of string was now dangling and the next bit of string was taut. He held it up and said,
"This is ‘Tomorrow’. Tomorrow, it won't matter what happened today because ‘Today’ (he moved the dangling string that had been ‘Today’) will have gone. ‘Today’ is just a tiny moment in time."
He kept his left hand fingers steady on 'tomorrow' and as he slid his right hand along the string, stretching it out to the end he said,
"You've got all this to look forward to....." (Which I have to admit I didn't think, at the time, was a particularly GOOD thing!!!)
When his right hand reached the end of the string, he had a small bit of string dangling and the rest stretched out in front of us both.
"And when you get up to this end of your life, this little crappy bit will have faded from your memory!"
Now I know I’m not at the ‘end of the string’ – yet! But I already know that he was absolutely spot on! I can see him and his piece of string as clearly now as if he was standing here in front of me, but I honestly can't remember what had got me in such a state. Whenever I get ‘in a flap’ about something, I remember him and grin. I just wish I’d kept in touch so I was able to thank him. Although I didn't realise (or understand it) at the time, it was probably the best bit of advice I was ever given!!!
If you have a bad day (or two), think about the piece of string and remember, ‘Today’ is just a titchy, tiny bit of your life.
Keep smiling and have a cheery word for everybody. Try and see the funny side of absolutely everything. Take every day as it comes.
They're ALL new days.
