They say we spend about one-third of our lives sleeping. When we sleep, our normal consciousness stops and we spend the night quite un-conscious. Many people think that sleep is a waste of time, seeing it as an interference to their busy important lives. When I was younger I felt pretty much the same, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve been seeing it differently…

Perhaps one of the reasons that we find sunrises and sunsets so beautiful is because they resonate with something deep within our psyche that instinctually reminds us that a “New Day” is about to begin.

When a new day begins, with it comes the fresh opportunity to do the things that we didn’t do yesterday, or to not do today the things that we didn’t want to do yesterday! To some people that can mean a fresh opportunity to start that new book they bought a few months ago, or to sign up for that course they’ve always wanted to take at the community centre, or to start that new diet or exercise plan, or to look for that new job, or to sit down at the computer and write….It can also mean the fresh opportunity to not do some things, like not picking up that first cigarette, or not picking up that first drink, or not criticising our friends or loved ones, or not sabotaging our efforts to achieve our long-held dreams. The choice is ours. Each and every new day gives us an absolutely fresh slate to draw upon. That makes us all artists—artists of our own lives.

You see, we don’t have to carry forward our yesterdays into today. Of course, practically speaking, our environments don’t change–nothing much really changes in our lives and situations over-night. But what can change is our attitude, our outlook, the way that we choose to view the day, because we really are—at least (and thank God)—free to choose how and what to think.

Most of us carry over our yesterdays into our today’s, via our memories. Memories, however, are like books that we don’t have to carry along with us. We can leave them where most of them really belong, on the “MB”, the Memory-Bookshelf of our brains, just as we leave our real books on the book-shelf in our homes. That might sound a bit trite and simplistic, and you are absolutely right, it is! That is the absolute beauty of it.

We are free to choose the books—the memories, or at least our response or attitudes towards the memories—that we want to carry along with us in the backpacks or briefcases of our consciousness, each  and every new day.

I’m not talking about motivation. I’m talking about the freedom to choose and that is what gives me hope when I go to sleep at night, that tomorrow I can start again, or excitedly carry on, even, with the things that I finally started yesterday! New day, new deal. A new opportunity to be the person I am and was meant to be.

And so can you! What you think, you are! Tomorrow really is a brand new day. Think about that.

For more about who I think YOU are, be sure to visit the “Who are YOU?” page.