October 31, 2019
Dear Eric,
It's a neat trick to neither lament nor attempt to remember the lives we did not live. For we all walk strange roads in our minds sometimes when our current path becomes rough or confused. It is tempting to reflect on the ways we could have gone instead of becoming now so seemingly lost. But what mastery to reflect little or not at all on imagined lives, no more than to be remembered as a cautionary tale to inform reason ahead of our future way.
I would walk always today just where I am now. And walk tomorrow from where today's journey takes me. Never wanting to be someone else, or someplace else, or to be doing other than what I must or should or what necessity or the pursuit of virtue demands; all the while remembering my still better self and adjusting my aim towards that more worthy mark. And so, I will live truly from day through day. I'll live well in the life that I have yet to live. There will be no pining for past lives never lived, or a current now only imagined like a dream, or some tomorrow which truly could never be. There's always room for a true tomorrow. There is always a place for a better next sunrise. Though only if we arrive at that place via the contented journey starting with now.
My name is Kurt Bell.
You can learn more about The Good Life in my book Going Alone.
Be safe... But not too safe.