Tomorrow is a blank canvas and you are the artist

Most people who are unhappy can trace their discontent to the fact that they are prisoners of the past. Maybe they didn’t get the grades they wanted in school and college, perhaps their careers didn’t shape up the way they would have liked, or they rue the fact that they could not marry their first crush. The reasons could range from the most inane to the most serious ones, but the common refrain is regret and grief about the past.

Now there are two things one can do in such a scenario - wallow in the misery of a less than satisfactory past or take stock of the situation and work for a tomorrow that is more in consonance with what we desire. This may seem like an obvious thing or a no-brainer, but we would be surprised at how we all are shackled to the past in some way or the other. In fact, whole nations go to war to right past wrongs, rather than work towards creating a better tomorrow for all concerned.

Look at how prosperous and wealthy the continent of Europe became after the end of the Second World War, when its nations decided to stop fighting and focus on building a better tomorrow for all their citizens. 

The horrors of the war taught them that the only thing over which we have total control is our tomorrow. The actions that we initiate now can shape the outcome of our tomorrow. It is almost as if tomorrow is a vast canvas, given to us to paint whichever way we want. The basic premise of life is to move on. We cannot make the past come back, so why to keep going back to it? The future, however, is another kettle fish. We can take measures to try and shape it any way we desire.  

When Henry Ford II summarily sacked Lee Iacocca from the position of President in the Ford Motor Company, the latter could have mopped about the unfairness of his dismissal and be reduced to a whiner. But he was made of sterner stuff. Instead of being bitter or wistfully reminiscing about past laurels, he accepted the position of President at Chrysler Corporation, which at that time faced bankruptcy. In the next three years, he turned around the company and made it profitable, earning the badge of a corporate legend. 

When Gandhi was thrown off the train in South Africa, by a racist white ticket checker, despite holding a valid first class ticket, he did not let his sense of shock overwhelm him. Instead he set in motion a revolution that brought the mighty British Empire to its knees. The trick to not letting adversity overwhelm you and rise like the proverbial phoenix is to understand that one is born anew every day. This is not a flight of fancy, but a fact of science. Every minute three million cells of our body die to be replaced by brand new ones. This means that we both literally and physically are a different person from the past and will be yet another person in the future. The only connection we have with the past is of memory. 

It is in our DNA to look forward to the future. If this hadn’t been so, man would still be a wretched caveman hunting for food. 

There is something noble about the eternal human quest to make our tomorrow better than our present. It is this irrepressible human trait that led to the ancient mariners embarking upon impossible ocean voyages that led to the discovery of continents. The same trait led to space travel and may one day bring man in contact with life in another part of the universe!  

When there is the whole universe waiting to be discovered why should any person waste their time thinking about what could have been rather than plan ahead for a glorious and spectacular future?  Look forward to tomorrow with hope and the world will be your oyster.