We Can’t Take Today With Us

Over last weekend while I was reading the newspaper, I came across an article by Janice Tay, a freelance writer, who was studying in a Japanese language school in Kyoto. It was time for her and her classmates to graduate and time for them to bid Sayoranara to each other. They had been in Kyoto for a year and a half and some of them had grown so attach to each other that it was hard for some of them to say goodbye. I believe that most of us would be able to relate to what they felt as we had already gone through similar experience in our lives.

They were having a farewell party at the pub and everyone was drinking and catching up for the last time before going their separate way. It had gone to a point whereby some were getting emotional and were weeping. In that moment, someone said, “Don’t cry - everyone will be friends forever.” Yes. That is true to certain extent and only for a few. I particularly agree with the author’s point of view that ‘keeping in touch with someone you can’t see and hear takes energy and imagination that few have.‘ If you and the person you are keeping in touch with believe in this. There will be a good chance to be friends forever. Otherwise, one will find it challenging even to find time to send an email. Friends forever - it is possible when both sides make time and effort plus a right portion of expectation. In fact, what is being said here can be applied to most relationships. In order to make a relationship work, it takes a good amount of communication but you will need to find time and to put in the effort to communicate in the first place.

Well, the key thing in the article that caught my attention was not how to be friends forever but rather in a statement that Janice wrote ‘You can’t take today with you.‘ What immediately came across my mind when I was reading it is that the statement makes a lot of positive sense. It reminds me of a quotation by Helen Keller.

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens: but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”

How often have you come across someone who told you that he/she had just broken up? Most initial response will be, “You will find someone new.” And isn’t that true for most people … eventually? The ones that never found someone new, most probably they never allowed themselves to start looking again after they went through unhappy relationships.

The underlying issue is that some people tend to hold on to the broken relationships longer than they should have. A question which I read in some books with a little modification, “If you knew that you would win the game by doing your best, how would you play the game?” For sure you would have played it confidently and have given it your best shot. The same rule can be applied here, “If you knew that you would meet someone new eventually, would you leave the closed door as soon as it closed and start to look for another open door. For one who believes that thing always happened for a reason, he/she will not have any challenges of moving on. You may ask me, “For what reason it happened?” What I can say is that we may not always see the reason immediately when it happened but when we do, it will be like “Ahem, so that’s why!” And sometimes we may not even realise the reason.

Naturally, life won’t be the same when we let go of what is already gone. However, I could not have put it more aptly than Janice that, ‘different doesn’t have to mean worse.’ It is not a guarantee always that different will be good when you chose to let go. But it is a sure guarantee that life ’stop’ when you continue to hold on to what is already gone. Like the farmer ploughing in the field, there is never a guarantee of a good harvest. The farmer knew that he/she has to continue to plough if he/she wants a harvest and like the law of seed, the more he/she plough, the chances of a good harvest increase. It is when the ploughing gets the tougher, it means that the harvest is nearer. Just like the say, “when the night is the darkest, it means that soon the day will break.”

We can’t take today with us … so we have to continue to move forward with the faith that tomorrow will be better and a lot of times, it really depends on ourselves to make tomorrow better. I wish goodness in everyday of your life and that you will have the courage to move forward fearlessly.