Just for Today

A bit of psychology/philosophy that AA built a religion on, can it get us through the days, long term? Just for today is a concept of making only this day the objective for consideration for today. It is all about getting through today, tomorrow we can worry about tomorrow. This concept can work well short term, an unknown short period. It is a short break in though, a vacation and never left the farm, sitting there on that sack of seeds. Wildwood Weed - Jim Stafford . Or Marcus Aurelius 4.3.

Back in 1969 I had a instructor at a technology college that told us of this philosophy, and how to use it to deal with pressure of exams. There was too much work, too much reading papers, assignments, and all the classes. No one could do it all. We had to decide how much work we could do. I decided to do enough to get through in all subjects, and any extra time would be spread where I thought I need it. Sacrifice the potentially high marks in some subjects, just to prop up the potentially lower marks in some subjects. Lay out a 60 hour a week plan of time use, and live one day at a time until the last final exams. The marks were irrelevant to the plan. One day at a time worked, short term.

This was not the first time I had explored this concept. Dale Carnegie, in either How to Win Friends and Influence People or in his Stop Worrying and Start Living expresses the concept of living in day-tight compartments... a similar concept, if not the same concept, expressed in different words. There is much of his two books that is in the BB, but not in the same words. Was Carnegie a concept copier?     Oh well, that is irrelevant.

But doing that just for today really grinds after a while. Short term it helps to focus, but long term? It is a management method, not a solution to anything, at least for me. I need something that holds my interest but does not leave me physically drained, unwilling to do anything beyond wonder around the house. Bait is everywhere. That is a environmental situation that the only way to change is go away. Do I have the energy to resist or go away? The solution to to get on with something, as last days distraction.

Enough. I am going out to kill something.