In 1854, more than a hundred years and some days before I was born, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a personal letter to his daughter Ellen. It included this advice:
You must finish a term & finish every day, & be done with it. For manners, & for wise living, it is a vice to remember. You have done what you could — some blunders & absurdities no doubt crept in forget them as fast as you can tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it well & serenely, & with too high a spirit to be cumbered with your old nonsense. This day for all that is good & fair. It is too dear with its hopes & invitations to waste a moment on the rotten yesterdays.
Over the years, R.W.E.’s writing was much-quoted and published in various forms and editions, with editors doing their re-writing… er, editing of his informal note to his daughter, which apparently many found might be helpful to a broader readership. I read this advice in various places and forms over the years and wondered why it differed a bit each time I encountered it. The essence was generally there; but the words were not the same. And so it goes. One wonders what Ralph would have thought about it all. All art is stolen? (Read Austin Kleon.)
Today I read it adapted in a Garrison Keillor newsletter:
Write it in your heart that every day is the best day of the year. Live in the sunshine, swim in the sea, breathe the wild air. Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is anew day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.
And then one can find it posted all ’round the webs in various pretty displays as:
Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.
Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.
This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.
I’m sure there are other… editions? Regardless, I appreciate the sentiment and choose to let the questions about editing and re-writing fall by the wayside. Is that consistent with Emerson’s advice? In any case, I’ve serenely stolen it three times here probably with too high a spirit, and do not find it to be old nonsense at all.
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
–Lamentations 3.22-23 [NIV]
See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.— Isaiah 43.19 [NIV]
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.
–2 Corinthians 4.16-18 [NIV]