Anyone who’s ever been on a diet (or likely tried to manage any kind of behavioral change) knows that when you have a bad day, when you deviate from the regime, you’re often tempted to just blow the whole thing off. It’s the dieter’s striving to get back on the wagon, not to get mired in the mistakes, but to keep the endgame in mind, be forgiving of one’s-self, and resume the program.
I’d guess a lot of us are having some bad days lately. Maybe not around food (with the exceptions of chocolate and red wine), but around our outlooks, our interactions with the news of the world, our ability to be productive. It is especially easy in a time and environment that is so fraught with uncertainty and change, where so much feels out of our control, to take the path of the erring dieter—to linger in our frustration, to submit to feelings of helplessness with abandon—and especially hard to appreciate our own agency and power, which can seem so small in comparison to the massive forces at play around us.
Yet, on each morning when we’re able to start the day with our ability to control our experience and our actions framed clearly in mind, and each evening when we’ve brought to fruition the efforts and intentions with which we began the day, we’re reminded: Tomorrow’s another day, and it’s our choice how we want to live it.
