Khalid Saifullah Motihari
An old man was on his last breaths. His son asked: "Father, what is the biggest lesson you learned in life?" The old man opened his eyes and said: "I spent my whole life worrying about tomorrow, and when today came, I realized that it was the same tomorrow that I had postponed to tomorrow."
Tomorrow is a word that is always in front of us, but never within reach. A person stands in today and calls out to it, makes plans, builds hopes, and then finds himself tired by evening. The search for tomorrow is not actually a search for time, but a search for a restlessness spread within a person that does not allow him to stop.
Man has been concerned about tomorrow since the day he lost confidence in today. When the present becomes a burden, the gaze automatically rises forward. We see tomorrow as better, safer, and brighter, but we rarely think that if the foundation of today is weak, what will tomorrow stand on?
In our lives, tomorrow often comes as a promise. We will speak the truth tomorrow, give time tomorrow, reform tomorrow, and find peace tomorrow. In this way, tomorrow does not remain hope, it becomes a delay. A person escapes from today by putting many of his decisions in tomorrow's account, and thus life slowly gets postponed.
In the tradition of thought and religion, tomorrow has never been left unrestrained. Preparation for tomorrow has always been conditional on the correctness of today. He who cannot handle today can only see tomorrow in a dream. Dreams give temporary satisfaction, but do not determine the direction of life.
Today's man has imprisoned tomorrow in plans. There are lists, there are goals, there are maps, but man himself is lost somewhere. He can calculate, but is afraid of accountability. Although no search is complete without accountability, even if it is tomorrow.
The biggest deception in the search for tomorrow is that we think tomorrow will change us. The truth is that tomorrow is what we leave behind today. The person who runs away from improving today is ready to blame tomorrow. Thus, the journey of search stops at complaint.
Tomorrow is a responsibility. This responsibility is connected to one's decisions, one's relationships, and one's behaviors. When a person understands this responsibility, he does not need extraordinary things for tomorrow. The correctness of the routine becomes his capital.
In the end, the question is not what tomorrow will be like, the question is what we are becoming today. Because tomorrow appears in the same form that is quietly being prepared today. If today is spent in negligence, then tomorrow remains only a name, and if today is spent in awakening, then tomorrow itself becomes the answer.