Living each day

Aurelian Victor Cotuna
Nov 5 · 4 min read

“Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death” — Arthur Schopenhauer

Our life is a succession of daily habits. Our mind will always try to optimize the time spent on processing information, and it relies on the power of habit to function properly and save energy.

Most our actions are more and more automatic. The thing is that not only good actions and thinking patterns are automatic, but all of them. The more we focus on a certain thing, the more likely it will become a habit.

Living each day

How much time each day are you focusing on the good things that are happening to you?

How much time each day are you focusing on worrying for the things that will or might happen?


The thing is that people tend to spend their waking hours worrying about different things. This is a daily practice and in time it grows into a habit — The worrying habit.

Photo by Smart on Unsplash

We are simply stuck in a continuous worrying loop between a combination of retrospection and introspection, the mistakes that we did in the past and the possibility of the future. We forget how to focus our efforts on today, at this moment in time. How can we get out of this loop?

Sir William Osier spoke in front of Yale students in 1914 and he offers a possible solution for those that want to break free from the worrying habit. Osier speaks that he crossed the Atlantic ocean on a great liner. He observed that the captain could, with a press of a button, control everything that was happening on the ship, including closing or opening different compartments. Dr Osier points out that every one of us can control ourselves just like the captain did with his ship. We can chose to open or close compartments in our lives, we can shut down the past, let go of the burden of the future and simply life for today. The future is today. Otherwise, everything else is simply a waste of energy, mental distress and worries.

William Osier continues that the point is not to avoid preparing for tomorrow. He said that in order to better prepare for what is going to happen, people should concentrate all their intelligence, enthusiasm and energy on doing the best possible work in the current moment. The best way to prepare for the future is to do our best today.

One of the saddest thing is that people tend to put off the most important aspect of their lives… living. We are dreaming of some world over the horizon instead of enjoying the time that we have at this moment. We all dream of that time when we have enough money, enough time, enough energy to do the things we want to do.

In his book Feast of Stephen Stephen Leacock wrote “The child says: ‘When I am a big boy.’ But what is that? The big boy says: ‘When I grow up.’ And then, grown up, he says: ‘When I get married.’ But to be married, what is that after all? The thought changes to ‘When I’m able to retire.” And then, when retirement comes, he looks back over the landscape traversed; a cold wind seems to sweep over it; somehow he has missed it all, and it is gone”.

To stop worrying why not live for today, enjoy the day and have a wonder-full time?

Photo by Arto Marttinen on Unsplash

Do you tend to put off today for a dream of the distant possible future?

Do you wake up in the morning worrying or enjoying a brand new opportunity?

Your turn

Through this article series called “Minutes Mindset,” I’m helping you build a solid mindset, writing my point of view on different subjects that we meet in our day by day life. I am a strong believer that once we can understand a subject, we can engage with the idea or refuse it altogether. Both ways are helping us grow and develop our own way of seeing the world.

If you like my work, clap on it, share it with your friends and follow me.

In the end, everything starts with us, with our mind, our self, and even our stories. We can choose to act or Not.

If your fitness trainer can help you get fit in the gym, I will help you get a fit Mindset. Let’s connect on Medium, Linkedin, Twitter and share some Ideas

Aurelian Victor Cotuna

Written by

#Mindset builder, high energy #IT #entrepreneur and #education disruptor. Daily mindset building project on Medium https://medium.com/@aurelianvictorcotun

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