People of the World, Untie!
Let go of yesterday and tomorrow in order to live today.
This particular bit of writing might head in a couple directions before resolving, and I’d like to clue you in to that before starting.
A while back, I drew some pictures on the theme of living life. But because we couldn’t figure out a way of presenting them to you other than saying “here are some pictures”, we haven’t done much with them … until now.
Recently I said to myself – self, think up some words to go with the Living Today drawings. And not too much later, the unite / untie dichotomy came to mind. How is it that we can all be both one and all, but still have so much strife?
And then the belief that in life “there are no coincidences” (I’m going to write on that subject in the future ) came into play…
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Living Yesterday
Some people spend all of their time in the past.
“Wasn’t it great when…”, “I had so much more …”, “My life was going along just fine until…”
The past holds their entire existence.
Today isn’t going to be as good as yesterday, and there is nothing that can be done about it. Tomorrow won’t get any better either.
I’m sure you know somebody like this…
Living Tomorrow
Some people are planning for tomorrow with all their might, yet they never take any steps to get there.
“It’ll be alright when…”, “I’ll have more than enough…”, “I’ll get ahead after…”
Dreams and plans make up their life.
Tomorrow is where the action and good things live, and you can’t hurry tomorrow. Yesterday is a thing of the past, but tomorrow – that’s another day.
Of course – If you’re waiting for tomorrow, you always will be.
Living Small
Some people give up on life without differentiating between yesterday and tomorrow, they don’t step out of their inner world to actually live.
“You have to be careful out there…”, “I don’t want to make any waves…”, “Nothing lost, because nothing ventured…”
Theirs is a life unlived.
Yesterday wasn’t so good, today’s not going well, and the prospects for tomorrow are worse than today.
These people live in a very small amount of space…
Living Large
Some people tend to live all over other people, they don’t have any boundaries.
“Get out of my way…”, “I’ll take that…”, “My life is great except for all those people that care about …”
There isn’t anything outside of their lives.
Yesterday is history, Tomorrow is yet to come, Today is tremendous, and who cares about you?
They have everything they want today, and they don’t see any reason to think about anything else.
Living Today
Some people live with …
- Enough concern for yesterday to keep from making the same mistakes.
- Enough planning for tomorrow to continue to succeed.
- Enough confidence in today to walk with assurance.
- Enough concern for others to live humbly.
“Today’s a great day”, “I have everything I need”, “My life is terrific”
This is a wonderful day to be alive.
Yesterday and Tomorrow are important, but you can only live, and you must live today.
And so … Why can’t we?
From my perspective it stems from the fact that we’re tied to all sorts of beliefs that weigh us down. Things that happened in the past that we can’t get over, thoughts on how the future must be, limits on how life is, beliefs that we’re the only thing in the world that matters.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could let go of some of those limiting thoughts – if we could free ourselves from them…
And so I get back to – People of the World, Untie!
Addendum …
In doing some research on this quote, this use of untie has just a few examples, all related to specific groups of people in the world (Stupid people, Dyslexic people, Tie wearing people, and Rope people…):
A very funny blog about perception and inconsiderate people incorporates “Stupid people of the world, UNTIE!” here – http://www.wadehodges.com/?p=750 (It has a great ending;-)
A couple people on myspace use “Dyslexic people of the world, untie!”
A number of years ago, a Dutch Prince wanted us to remove them, described here: “People of the World Untie” http://www.zateev.net/ontarget/bodies/untie.html
And oddly enough it came up on a Star Wars forum with an oddly title post “Rope People of the World-Untie!!” http://forums.starwars.com/thread.jspa?threadID=90523