Do you ever go through a day and look back at the end of it and wish you had done things differently? And not even so much wish you had done things differently, but wished you had reacted and lived more like you desire to then you actually did?

It’s tough to recognize that we are not static creatures. Too often I think we treat our own lives and the individual days that make up our lives as isolated incidents, within which we are simply who we are. Much like the frog in a pot of water, we are content to simply sit in our environment, oblivious to the water boiling us to our death.

You see, when I eat a piece of chocolate today I do not see it immediately adding pounds of fat to my waistline, slowing my biking speed or causing the onset of cancer. Yet years of those isolated days with pieces of chocolate, extra slices of pizza and ice cream sundaes will result in thirty pounds I never wanted to gain.

It’s the same with nearly all our actions. If today I responded in anger, or unlovingly, to someone I might simply write it off as justified, or just who I am. If I do not seek to be aware that this is not who I want to be, and make an effort to change it, I will wind up twenty years later with fewer friends and much more grouchy then I ever desired to become.

Today is not an isolated event. The choices I make today, the small actions I allow myself will carry into tomorrow. If I desire to be a healthier person, those choices start today. If I am to be a hard worker, I must be a hard worker today. I am not the person I want to become, but if I am diligent I can focus my actions today towards becoming that person.