Now & Then & Etc

Days roll by—for that is life—and each night before I go to bed I think, “What worthwhile did I do today?”

I do my day using a to-do list, but what I’ve added to that habit, and which brightens my being, is to write my dones into a calendar notebook at the end of the day—sort of a record of having engaged life. And then I put asterisks beside the good dones, those dones that I think brought some good into the world or into other peoples’ lives. With all the day’s busyness, many details fade by nightfall, but by reviewing my to-do list and notating what I’ve accomplished, I realize, “I did worthwhile stuff today, mostly little things, but I’ve done them.” I conclude: “It’s been a good day,” so I smile. MRM

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Some maxims–mine and others:

“Do something good and useful each day, be good with others, and be grateful for God’s many miracles: Having done that is sufficient to have lived a good day.”
     — MRM

“What’s on your to-do list becomes your dones. In the evening, write down your dones, and feel good about the day.”
     — MRM

“Do it now. You may never get another chance.”     
     — MRM

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
— Theodore Roosevelt (Quote seen on a mug that I bought at the Medora Old Town Theater. Medora is the town next to North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park.)

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
     — Aristotle