“Ieri, Oggi, Domani” (“Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”) is the title of a popular 1963 Italian movie starring Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren.
The title also could be used to name three different attitudes about life and the people attracted to one or another of them.
Most people tend to favor the life style, customs, and religiosity of either yesterday, today or tomorrow.
– “Yesterday” people often have fond memories of bygone times, places, and people. Maybe because their past had mostly pleasant and happy experiences or maybe because they forgot or ignored or repressed the negative memories. (Be careful about your childhood memories, for a child doesn’t have the breadth of experience that an adult has.)
– “Today” people can be a little naïve or narrow in what they celebrate or criticize. Maybe because they have not paid sufficient attention to their past or, to the contrary, not given enough thought to the consequences of their present choices and planned actions in the future.
– “Tomorrow” people can range from optimistic dreamers to sad complainers as they look ahead to the next stages of their life. Their imaginations for tomorrow may be plausible and realistic, based on their lived experience to date, or hopelessly simplistic, impractical, and implausible.
There’s a yesterday, today or tomorrow to almost every aspect of our lives, values, traditions, morality, beliefs, trusts, and faith.
Why? Why because we are alive, because we are constantly advancing, falling back, learning, forgetting, progressing, and developing in our lives. That’s the way God made us. We’re ever-changing.
Perhaps we should imagine our life as consisting of Before, Now, and Then, or, you could say, of what happened, is happening, and could happen.
“Yesterday” is fixed. The paint has dried, the deed is done. And, we tend to either celebrate it or bewail it.
“Tomorrow” is not yet. It’s the possible, probable, or unlikely. It’s the could-be, not necessarily the should-be nor the will-be.
“Today” is what’s in process right now, a dynamic boundary between “Yesterday” and “Tomorrow”, between “before” and “after”.
Your life is always “in motion”. You’re either braking and trying to return to what was, or you’re moving full speed ahead along a familiar route or following what you consider a trustworthy map.
You can become distracted, have accidents, or lose your way when you’re driving or riding with another. Conversely you can progress, slow or fast, and safely arrive at your destination.
(And, obviously, if you have no destination in mind, you never arrive at one—a destination, that is; you always arrive someplace!)
The bottom line: You exist, you’re alive—i.e., you’re a “Today” person. But, what do you yearn for? Where are your memories, plans, hopes, and fears focused? Are you also a “Yesterday” or a “Tomorrow” person?
You may and can be either, whichever you choose. But, be careful and beware. “Yesterday” may involve going backwards, and “Tomorrow” implies going forwards.
“Yesterday” may seem more secure, but it really isn’t; it’s just a more familiar ground in your life journey.
“Tomorrow” may seem problematic and riskier, but it’s the main way to progress, which includes both successes and failures.
“Today” is Now. “Today” is what is happening. “Today” is what really counts!
5 March 2023