Taking It One Day at a Time

without us perhaps quite noticing much of what we place our hopes in will be ready for us in a very long time indeed in months or even decades from now if ever the successful completion of a novel a sufficient sum of money to buy a house or begin a new career the discovery of a suitable partner a move to another country in the list of our most intensely felt hopes few entries stand to come to fruition this season or next let alone by tonight but occasionally life places us in a situation where our normal long-range hopeful way of thinking grows impossible imagine you've had a car accident a very bad one for weeks it seemed like you might not make it at all now you're out of a coma and back home but you still have multiple broken bones serious bruises and constant meat grain it's unclear from here when you'll be going back to work or whether you ever will when someone asks how things are one answer seems to fit above all we're taking it one day at a time imagine that a person is 89 mentally agile but very slow on their feet and often in pain they had a fool last month and the left knee is badly arthritic yesterday they did some gardening today they may go to the shops for the first time in a while you ask their carer how they are we're taking it one day at a time oh you're a new parent it was a very difficult birth the baby had jaundice and required a blood transfusion and now finally mother and child are home the baby cries a lot in the night and has to take some medicines that aggravate the stomach but last night was good enough and hopefully today if the weather holds there's a chance of taking a trip to the park to see the daffodils how's it all going we're taking it one day at a time these may be extreme scenarios and a natural impulse is to hope that we will never encounter them but they contain valuable teachings for anyone with a tendency to ignore their own advantages that is for all of us one day at a time thinking reminds us that in many cases our greatest enemy is that otherwise critical nectar hope and the perplexing emotion it tends to bring with it impatience by limiting our horizons - tonight we're girding ourselves for the long haul and remembering that an improvement may best be achieved when we manage not to await it too ardently our most productive mood may be acquired melancholy with which we can ward off the temptations of rage or mania and fully imbibe the moderates steadfastness required to do fiddly things write a book bring up a child repair a marriage or work through a mental breakdown taking it day by day means reducing the degree of control we expect to be able to bring to bear on the uncertain future it means recognizing that we have no serious capacity to exercise our will on a span of years and should not therefore disdain a chance to secure one or two minor wins in the hours ahead of us we should from a new perspective count ourselves immensely grateful if by nightfall there have been no further arguments and no more seizures if the rain is let off and we found one or two interesting pages to read as life as a whole grows more complicated we can remember to unplug and smile a little along the way rather than jealously husbanding our reserves of joy for a finale somewhere in the nebulous distance given the scale of what we're up against knowing that perfection may never occur and that far worse may be coming our way we can stoop to accept with fresh gratitude a few of the minor gifts that are already within our grasp we might look with fresh energy at a cloud a duck a butterfly or a flower at 22 we might scoff at such suggestions for there seemed so many larger grander things to hope for than these evanescent manifestations of nature romantic love career fulfillment or big political change but with time almost all one's more revolutionary aspirin Asians tend to take a hit perhaps a very large hit one encounters some of the intractable problems of intimate relationships one suffers the gap between one's professional hopes and the available realities one has a chance to observe how slowly and fitfully the world ever alters in a positive direction one is fully inducted to the extent of human wickedness and folly and to one's own eccentricity selfishness and madness and so natural beauty may take on a different hue no longer a petty distraction from a mighty destiny no longer an insult to ambition but a genuine pleasure amidst the litany of troubles an invitation to bracket anxieties and keep self-criticism at bay a small resting place for hope in a sea of disappointment a proper consolation for which one is finally ready on an afternoon walk to be appropriately grateful Vincent van Gogh was admitted to the sampled mental asylum in surimi in southern France in May of 1889 having lost his mind and tried to sever his ear at the start of his stay he mostly lay in bed in the dark after a few months he grew a little stronger and was able to go out into the garden and it was here that he noticed in a legendary act of concentrated aesthetic absorption that gnarled roots of a southern pine the blossom on an apple tree a caterpillar on its way across a leaf and most famously the bloom of a succession of purple irises in his hands these became like the totemic symbols of a new religion oriented towards a celebration of the transcendent beauty of the everyday his vars with irises is no sentimental study of a common flower it is the work of a pivotal figure in Western culture struggling to make it to the end of the day without doing himself in and clinging on very tightly indeed with the hands of a genius - a reason to live it's normal enough to hold out for all that we want why would we celebrate hobbling when we want to run why accept friendship when we crave passion but if we reach the end of the day and no one has died no further limbs have broken a few lines have been written and one or two encouraging and pleasant things have been said then that is already an achievement worthy of a place at the altar of sanity how natural and tempting to put one's faith in the bountifulness of the years but how much wiser it might be to bring all one's faculties of appreciation and love to bear on that most modest and most easily dismissed of increments the day already in hand the school of life is coming to New York from the 4th to the 6th of October for a three-day conference or you'll have the chance to meet other like-minded individuals and embark on a journey of genuine self-discovery and self transformation we hope to see you there

Channel: The School of Life

Views: 1,933,342

Keywords: the school of life, schooloflife, education, relationships, alain de botton, philosophy, talk, self, improvement, big questions, love, wellness, mindfullness, psychology, how, to, hack, Taking it one day at a time, cope, how to cope with a broken heart, how to cope with anxiety, how to cope with depression, depression, mental health, coping mechanisms, PL-SELF, stress, anxiety, meditation, 一次服用一天, Tomándolo un día a la vez, एक समय में एक दिन लेना

Id: UhWFddWz1Nk

Length: 7min 30sec (450 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 31 2019